Romanic Review 1944-12: Vol 35 Iss 4

-HE ROMANIC REVIEW

FOWNDED BY PROFESSOR HENRY ALFRED TODD

A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF
THE DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS » PUBLISHERS

VOLUME XXXV + DECEMBER 1944 » NUMBER FOUR

THE ROMANIC REV)

A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION

Horatio Smitn, General Editor
JEAN-ALBERT BEDE JUSTIN O'BRIEN
DINO BIGONGIARI FEDERICO DE ON{S
* ANGEL DEL Rfo MARIO A. PEI
HENRI F. MULLER NORMAN L. TORREY
TOMAS NAVARRO W. M. FROHOCK, Secretary

VOLUME XXXV DECEMBER 1944 NUMBER 4
ARTICLES
Pour Que Vive L’Ame de la France Pau Hazarp

Towards an Understanding of Diderot’s Esthetic Theory
Eveanor M. Waker

Alfred de Vigny and Positivism D. O. Evans

Gérard de Nerval’s Unfinished Novel S. A. Ruopes

Three Spanish-Portuguese Etymologies Yakov MALkIEL

Les Dérivés Francais du Type aedificare Rapuae Levy
REVIEWS

Sister Marianna Gildea, Expressions of Religious Thought and Feeling in
the Chansons de Geste. [JEAN Misraut]

Warren Francis Manning, The Life of Saint Dominic in Old French Verse.
[Jean Misrant]

Eric M. Steel, Diderot’s Imagery. A Study of a Literary Personality.
[Hersert DieckMANN]

Mercer Cook, Five French Negro Authors. [Luoyp B. Stuart]

Wallace Fowlie, Clowns and Angels: Studies in Modern French Literature.
[W. M. Fronock]

Books Received

Index

Copyright, 1945, Columbia Univerity Press

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POUR QUE VIVE L’AME DE LA FRANCE!

C’ETAIT PENDANT L’HIVER DE 1807-1808. La Prusse venait de subir un
des plus sanglants échecs de son histoire; sa puissance militaire était
anéantie: les troupes napoléoniennes tenaient garnison 4 Berlin. Alors
un philosophe monta dans la chaire qu’il occupait 4 l'Université de cette
ville et fit aux étudiants un cours qu’il publia sous le nom de “‘Discours
a la Nation allemande.” Il y avait des espions parmi ses auditeurs;
tandis qu’il parlait, on entendait parfois le martellement des pas, le
roulement des tambours des troupes occupantes. I] n’en continuait pas
moins a remplir la mission qu’il s’était assignée, et 4 développer des
idées qui se résumaient en celle-ci: il est vrai que nous sommes vaincus
et que nous sommes écrasés; mais nous nous reléverons, si nous ne nous
abandonnons pas nous-mémes; si nous sommes capables de retrouver
les forces morales qui sont la source jaillissante de toute grandeur du-
rable; si nous savons nous recréer une 4me nationale.

Qu’il vaille pour nous, ce mémorable exemple! Aucun peuple ne peut
le récuser, pas méme celui qui exerce sur notre pays sa domination
provisoire, puisque c’est 4 la foi dans une idée qu’il a demandé jadis
son propre salut. Rappelez-vous (qui l’oublierait?) que nous sommes
vaincus, que nous sommes écrasés; mais non pour tirer de ce fait une
délectation morose: au contraire, pour nous rappeller du méme coup
qu’il n’est de défaite irréparable que si elle est acceptée et consentie.
Ne cédons pas 4 un malheur que le temps a apporté, et que le temps
emportera; recommencons ce travail patient qui consiste 4 nous refaire
une conscience exacte de nos droits et de nos devoirs; et par ce travail
intérieur, reconstituons la France. . . .

La France posséde une individualité propre; les différentes provinces

1. The Romanic Review published in the preceding issue, October 1944, a memorial in
honor of Paul Hazard. We have since received the present article by the distinguished
humanist—written just before his death. It was published in April 1944, the month of his

death, in a clandestine review, France de demain, and re-issued a few days after the liberation
of Paris in Résistance (September 4, 1944), a journal under the same editorship as France de
demain.

The article is offered here not only as a further memorial to our colleague and friend, but
as a document of historical importance. It shows the perspective and vigor of a great French
scholar facing with his people their deep trouble. It is a twentieth-century example of that
“force extraordinaire de I’me”’ extolled at his noblest moment by La Rochefoucauld.

There is further word from Paris to the effect that Paul Hazard had completed a continua-
tion of the three volumes of his Crise de la conscience européenne. The new work is to be en-
titled Les Origines intellectuelles de ! Europe contemporaine: le dix-huitiéme siécle de Montesquieu
a Lessing, and will be published in France as soon as conditions permit.

The Editors of the
Romanic Review

274 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

qui la composent se sont unies moins par des nécessités géographiques et
historiques que par une communauté spirituelle; des siécles de revers
et de succés, de dangers et de gloires, ont scellé cette union. Que cette
individualité soit menacée, comme elle ne I’a jamais été dans tout le
déroulement du passé, c’est une constatation si évidente qu’elle n’a pas
besoin d’étre développée. L’étre de la France est menacé du dedans, par
la perfidie et la trahison. Une minorité de Francais, qui ont vendu leur
dme pour trente deniers, ose nous proposer, comme seul moyen de salut,
la germanisation.

Tout l’étranger portait témoignage, hier encore, de l’importance
qu'il attachait 4 la persistance de ce caractére national dans l’harmonie
du monde. Au patrimoine commun, quelles richesses n’avons-nous pas
versées? Quelle liste de savants ou de penseurs serait compléte sans nos
noms? Quel calendrier de |’Eglise sans nos missionnaires, nos apotres,
nos martyrs? Quel inventaire de l’art, sans nos chateaux et sans nos
cathédrales, sans nos tableaux et sans nos statues, sans nos harmonies?
Quelle histoire des conquétes de la civilisation, sans le compte des
épreuves que nous avons voulu subir, non pas seulement pour nous-
mémes, mais pour donner ]’exemple a l'Europe et 4 ’humanité?

La France n’est pas assez présomptueuse pour penser qu'elle repré-
sente a elle seule toutes les valeurs; mais elle sait que si elle venait a
disparaitre de la carte des nations, que si elle n’y figurait plus que
comme une province peuplée d’esclaves, la représentation éminente de
certaines valeurs essentielles disparaitrait avec elle; |’universelle sym-
phonie serait incomplete et mutilée. Ce qu’il vaut la peine de conserver,
ce sont quelques idées et quelques sentiments auxquels elle est de-
meurée si fidélement attachée, qu’ils sont inséparables de sa notion
méme: l’idée qu’il faut mettre dans la vie tout 4 la fois de la clarté, de la
beauté, de la douceur; l’idée que la vérité n’est pas dans l’incertain et
dans l’obscur; le sentiment de la liberté individuelle; le sentiment de la
justice; le sentiment du droit, qui essaie d’introduire un élément de
stabilité dans |’éternel écoulement des choses.

Cette France qui est menacée de disparaitre, cette France qui mérite
de ne pas disparaitre, y a-t-il un moyen sir et décisif de la conserver?
Et s’il existe, quel est-il?

Oui, ce moyen existe; oui, ce moyen est sir et décisif. Si sir et si
décisif, qu’il a commencé 4 opérer sous nos yeux. L’histoire dira
peut-étre par quels défauts nous sommes arrivés 4 la défaite; mais il
faudra qu’elle enregistre aussi ce fait, en vérité admirable: malgré le

L’AME DE LA FRANCE 275

désarroi et malgré la débacle; malgré les invites et malgré les sourires;
malgré l’argent dépensé 4 pleines mains; malgré une propagande qui
cherche 4 empoisonner nos jours et nos veilles; malgré la censure,
malgré les baillons; malgré les privations, la misére et la faim; malgré
la terreur, les arrestations, les emprisonnements, les fusillades et quel-
quefois les supplices: non seulement |’4me francaise dans |’immense
majorité de ses représentants, n’a pas été entamée, mais elle s’est re-
prise de jour en jour. Faire de chacun de nos cceurs une forteresse inex-
pugnable: voila le moyen de notre salut.

Vous le pratiquez, 6 prisonniers qui, dans vos casemates, derriére
vos fils de fer barbelés, mettez votre fierté 4 exalter votre courage, a
purifier votre ame, 4 préparer en nous les forces dont vous savez que
nous aurons besoin, pour |’ceuvre immense qui vous attend a votre
retour. Vous ne cherchez pas 4 oublier; dans vos distractions, méme,
vous mettez de la pensée; la captivité n’est pour vous qu’une vaillante
veillée d’armes; de votre tombe, vous surgirez le troisiéme jour. Ce
moyen sir et décisif, vous le pratiquez, 6 jeunes gens qui avez refusé
de vous soumettre 4 la servitude, qui avez refusé de croire 4 une Europe
qui ne serait qu'une tyrannie, qui avez refusé d’accepter promesses,
avantages et profits, qui avez choisi le parti de la souffrance et de la
persécution.

Si nous suivons ces hauts exemples; si nous substituons l’esprit de
sacrifice 4 l’esprit d’égoisme; si nous faisons taire nos préférences in-
dividuelles, notre goat de la discussion et de la division, pour reprendre
en toutes circonstances la devise de nos aieux, FRANCE D’ABORD;
si nous demandons chaque matin ce que nous ferons pour la France et,
chaque soir, ce que nous avons fait pour la France; si nous résistons, si
nous continuons 4 résister aux compromissions que pourraient amener
habitude et les fatigues, dans la longue suite des jours, des semaines,
des mois et des années; si chaque contrainte au lieu de nous effrayer,
nous endurcit: loin de voir notre esprit national se dissoudre et se fondre,
nous le verrons se préparer aux victoires qu’aujourd’hui espére et que
demain apportera.

C’est pour n’avoir pas eu cette volonté farouche que tant de peuples
ont péri sans retour. C’est pour l’avoir eue qu’au début du dix-neu-
viéme siécle, Espagne envahie s’est retrouvée elle-méme. C’est pour
l’avoir eue que I’Italie de Cavour et de Mazzini, de morcelée et d’in-
cohérente qu’elle était, a éliminé peu 4 peu les puissances étrangéres
qui s’étaient installées chez elle et a proclamé son Risorgimento.

C’est pour qu’elle s’affirme, qu’elle se propage, qu’elle se communique
de proche en proche, que parait la présente revue. Acte de foi dans les

276 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

destinées de la France; bref discours adressé 4 notre nation; examen de
conscience, d’od doit sortir un propos délibéré; invitation a une croisade
pour la défense des lieux saints qui s’appellent la patrie.

Paut Hazarp

Collége de France

TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF
DIDEROT’S ESTHETIC THEORY

THERE IS A FAMOUS QUOTATION from one of Diderot’s letters to Sophie
Volland which has sometimes been pessimistically viewed as an ac-
knowledgment of the defeat of Diderot and of his students as well in their
search for truth:

La téte d’un Langrois est sur ses épaules comme un cog d’église en haut d’un
clocher. Elle n’est jamais fixe dans un point; et si elle revient 4 celui qu’elle a
quitté, ce n’est pas pour s’y arréter. Avec une rapidité surprenante dans les
mouvements, dans les idées, ils ont le parler lent. . . . Pour moi, je suis de mon

pays; seulement le séjour de la capitale et l’application assidue m’ont un peu
corrigé.!

In reality this pleasant caricature, with its modest qualification, is a
challenge to the adequacy of an uncritical historical method in literary
scholarship. Unless we respect the organic unity which underlies the
most disparate manifestations of Diderot’s thought, we succumb to the
disparity instead of surmounting it. Every student of Diderot knows that
the task of assimilating and synthesizing even a single aspect of the
thought of the philosophe from the wealth of speculation in which he in-

dulged is formidable. The road thus far cleared by Diderot scholars is
strewn with skeletons of analyses found wanting and abandoned by the
wayside. The debate on what Diderot’s esthetic theories really were is
an old one.? It has been nourished on two categories of discrepancies:
those arising from conflicting statements about esthetic theory proper,
and those arising from apparent conflicts between theory and practice,
that is, between Diderot’s thought and his taste. It would be doing an in-
justice to Diderot to turn even his maturest reflections into dogma, but
we may be sure that if he allowed himself a freely dialectical procedure
in his search for truth, he always took position within the limits of a sci-
entifically grounded philosophy of nature. Diderot thought and wrote
too much about the problems of esthetics not to have related them to his
fundamental philosophical convictions. If we are willing to concede that
his dialectic was put to a better purpose than that of showing the vaga-
ries of the winds of thought, there ought to be some profit to be derived
from placing his varied speculations on esthetics in their proper relation

1. Diderot, Lettres a Sophie Volland, éd. A. Babelon, 4* éd., Paris, Gallimard, 1938, 1, 45.
In other editions this passage may be found by referring to the letter of August 10, 1759.

2. For a recent treatment of the question see Lester Gilbert Krakeur, “Aspects of Dide-
rot’s Esthetic Theory,” RR, xxx (1939), 244-259.

278 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

to the frame of reference provided by his general philosophy. The ‘‘con-
tradictions”’ which have until now seemed so baffling may be easier to
deal with if the oppositions of a truly dialectical nature can be distin-
guished from those arising from incidental historical influence, or from
the humanistic attenuations of pure naturalism.

The works in which Diderot discusses esthetics are innumerable, but
it is in philosophical studies like the Eléments de physiologie, the Lettre
sur les sourds et muets, and the Réve de D’ Alembert that we find the most
mature and self-critical attempts to elaborate a naturalistic philosophy of
esthetics. In the Réve de D’ Alembert, for example, the dialogue develops
from the effort to dispose of the difficulties inherent in a supernaturalis-
tic interpretation of the universe by making life, thought and feeling
purely physiological phenomena. The first and fundamental premise is,
as always in Diderot, that all matter is endowed with sensation, whether
this exists in a latent or an active state.* We live in a Heraclitean uni-
verse of flux, in which there is continual interpenetration of all forms of
being.‘ Being itself is explained as behavior, the manifestation of tenden-
cies towards an end on the part of an organism formed when contiguous,
living matter is brought, through the operation of time and chance, into
continuity or unity.®

On these ideas of sensation and being are founded explanations of con-
sciousness, memory and thought which throw considerable light on
esthetic experience. Memory, the ability of the nervous system to retain
and record sense impressions, is the only source of the organism’s con-
sciousness of itself, and the slowness with which the vicissitudes of ex-
istence are registered is responsible for our sense of the continuity of our
being.® Using the suggestive language of his comparison of man with the
“clavecin sensible,” Diderot begins by postulating the function of the
memory as a perpetuation of vibrations begun as the result of a direct
sense impression.’ Consequently, he finds himself in a position to eluci-
date two of the most important functions of the imagination: the creation
of similes and metaphors, and the perception of analogies. The sympa-
thetic vibration of strings at unexpected intervals, that is, the creation of
original metaphors, the apprehension of unguessed relationships, is a
consequence of a rich accumulation of delicate and varied experiences

3. Diderot, Réve de D’ Alembert, Giuvres, éd Assézat et Tourneux, 1875, 1, 106; also
Eléments de physiologie, Giuvres, 1x, 269.

4. Diderot, Réve de D’ Alembert, Euvres, 1, 138-139; also Eléments de physiologie, Euvres,
IX, 253.

5. Diderot, Réve de D’ Alembert, Geuvres, u, 139-140.

6. Ibid., p. 160; also Eléments de physiologie, iuvres, 1x, 362.

7. Diderot, Réve de D’ Alembert, Giuvres, u, 113.

DIDEROT’S ESTHETIC THEORY 279

during the life of the organism. The conceptions of conscious and sub-
conscious, voluntary and involuntary memory, are not only compatible
with this theory, but are, in other places, suggested by Diderot.* The
memory, then, serves not only as the counter from which remembered
sensations (ideas in the Lockeian sense) are consciously chosen for com-
parison or illustration, but as the vault of images secretly stored in the
darkness of nerve centers, from whence they spring, in an unpredictable
and often inexplicable manner, coupling themselves to present ideas to
form the metaphors of the poet and the hypotheses of the scientist. As
Steel® points out, Diderot did not or could not go as far as modern psy-
chologists such as Ribot and Peillaube in analyzing the processes of the
imagination. It is at times even difficult to understand exactly how Dide-
rot distinguished the memory from the imagination, to say nothing of
following through the steps in the creation of an image. But lack of ex-
plicitness in no wise compromises the profundity of his conjectures,
which do not exclude but rather imply most of what modern investiga-
tors consider essential to the explanation of imaginative processes.

We must recall one more sequence of biological material in order to
complete the basis of Diderot’s fundamental esthetic theory. The image
this time is of the spider who is at once web and spider, sensible body
and centralized consciousness.!° After confirming with what experi-
mental evidence he has at his command the theory that consciousness is
located in a specific area of the brain, Diderot considers the relationship
of the various organs of sense (all of which, it will be remembered, are
but differentiations of the sense of touch) to the center of consciousness.
He offers the theory of a variable equilibrium between the independence
of the organs (Jes filets) and the control exercised by the brain (I origine
du faisceau) in relation to which the state of the organism may be one
of despotism or of anarchy:

La fibre est un animal simple, l"homme est un animal composé. . . . Et l’animal
[homme] est sous le despotisme ou sous l’anarchie. . . . On est ferme, si,
@habitude ou d’organisation, l’origine du faisceau domine les filets; faible,
au contraire, si elle en est dominée. . . . Par exemple, si l’origine du faisceau
rappelle toutes les forces a lui, si le systéme entier se meut pour ainsi dire a
rebours, comme je crois qu’il arrive dans "homme qui médite profondément,
dans le fanatique qui voit les cieux ouverts, dans le sauvage qui chante au
milieu des flammes, dans |’extase, dans |’aliénation volontaire ou involon-
taire . . . eh bien, l’animal se rend impassible, il n’existe qu’en un point.”

8. Diderot, Eléments de physiologie, euvres, 1x, 366-367.

9. Eric M. Steel, Diderot’s Imagery, 1941, pp. 17-25.

10. Diderot, Réve de D’ Alembert, CEuvres, u, 140-141.
11. lbid., pp. 161-166, passim.

280 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

The artist is not expressly mentioned here, but the other passages in
which he is mentioned make it perfectly clear that artistic experience is
one of the aspects of intense mental activity which Diderot is seeking to
explain. The reason for lumping together artists, mystics, philosophers
and madmen is that for the moment it is the direct description of the
quality of their experience which interests Diderot. The critical evalua-
tion of that experience raises several fundamental problems.

So far neither the fact that new relationships are perceived nor the
quality of the experience of perceiving them has served to distinguish
poetic from scientific knowledge. For a philosopher of science such as
Diderot such a distinction is essential. Therefore, recognizing but not
succumbing to the Berkeleyan criticism of reality, Diderot tries to
ground on physiological observations a naturalistic theory of knowledge
that will permit a definition of poetic experience as something apart from
knowledge and at the same time as persuasive as knowledge:

L’analogie, dans les cas les plus composés, n’est qu’une régle de trois qui
s’exécute dans l’instrument sensible. Si tel phénoméne connu en nature est
suivi de tel autre phénoméne connu en nature, quel sera le quatritme phé-
noméne conséquent 4 un troisiéme, ou donné par la nature, ou imaginé a
limitation de la nature? . . . C’est une quatriéme corde harmonique et pro-
portionnelle 4 trois autres dont |’animal attend la résonance qui se fait toujours
en lui-méme, mais qui ne se fait pas toujours en nature. Peu importe au poéte, il
n’en est pas moins vrai. C’est autre chose pour le philosophe; il faut qu'il
interroge ensuite la nature qui, lui donnant souvent un phénoméne tout 4 fait
différent de celui qu’il avait présumé, alors il s’apercoit que |’analogie I’a
séduit.”

To put Diderot’s conclusions in the modern terminology that they de-
serve, a relationship intuitively perceived in the manner described above
could not be considered scientifically reliable unless it were publicly at-
tested and agreed to by other, similarly organized, “clavecins sensibles.”
But a relationship intuitively perceived may continue to be persuasive
even when proved false by the criteria of scientific knowledge, first, be-
cause the association, however inexplicable in the light of everyday ex-
perience, was really effected in the organism of the artist, and, secondly,
because the “despotic’’ control of the consciousness over the individual
organs causes the relationship to be felt with an intensity often lacking
even in direct sense impressions.

Going beyond the analysis of the individual experience to consider its
existence in individual human beings, Diderot is careful to maintain on
the one hand his description of the unique, intense quality of artistic ex-

12. Ibid., p. 119.

DIDEROT’S ESTHETIC THEORY 281

perience, and, on the other hand, his distinction between knowledge
which is to be accepted as scientific and knowledge which is merely
poetic. The chief interlocutors of the Réve de D’ Alembert continue thus
their discussion of the nervous system:

Bordeu.—Je n’élude rien, je vous dis ce que je sais, et j’en saurais davantage
si organisation de l’origine du réseau m’était aussi connue que celle de ses
brins, si j’avais eu la méme facilité de l’observer. Mais si je suis faible sur les

phénoménes particuliers, en revanche, je triomphe sur les phénoménes géné-
raux.

Mademoiselle de ? Espinasse —Et ces phénoménes généraux sont?

Bordeu.—La raison, le jugement, imagination, la folie, limbécilité, la
férocité, l’instinct.

Mademoiselle de l Espinasse —J entends. Toutes ces qualités ne sont que des

conséquences du rapport originel ou contracté par l’habitude de l’origine du
faisceau 4 ses ramifications. :

Bordeu.—A merveille. Le principe ou le tronc est-il trop vigoureux relative-
ment aux branches? De 1a les poétes, les artistes, les gens 4 imagination, les
hommes pusillanimes, les enthousiastes, les fous. Trop faible? De 14 ce que
nous appelons les brutes, les bétes féroces. Le systéme entier lache, mou, sans
énergie? De 1a les imbéciles. Le systéme entier énergique, bien d’accord, bien
ordonné? De 1a les bons penseurs, les philosophes, les sages."

The power of detachment and control which assures the ascendancy of
the philosopher over the poet in matters of fact does not prevent a tem-

porary submission of the philosophic to the esthetic consciousness in
matters of art:

Le grand paysagiste a son enthousiasme particulier; c’est une espéce d’horreur
sacrée. Ses antres sont ténébreux et profonds; ses rochers escarpés menacent
le ciel; les torrents en descendent avec fracas, ils rompent au loin le silence
auguste de ses foréts. L’homme passe 4 travers de la demeure des démons et des
dieux. C’est 14 que |’amant a détourné sa bien-aimée, c’est 14 que son soupir
n’est entendu que d’elle. C’est 14 que le philosophe, assis ou marchant a pas
lents, s’enfonce en lui-méme. Si j’arréte mon regard sur cette mystérieuse
imitation de la nature, je frissonne."

In the face of this double evidence—speculative in the Réve de D’A-
lembert, practical in the Pensées détachées—there seems little room for
doubt about the meaning of Diderot’s “modéle intérieur.’’ The “mys-
térieuse imitation de la nature” is not the abstract, rationalized world of
Platonic ideas, which was commonly considered the field of operation of

13. Ibid., p. 169.
14. Diderot, Pensées détachées sur la peinture, Giuvres, xu, 88.

282 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

the artist by predecessors and even contemporaries of Diderot. It is
rather an immensely sharpened and significant vision of the external uni-
verse which wells forth from the reservoir of past experience and is im-
posed upon the artist by the force of his imagination with all the par-
ticularity and vividness of a mystical trance. The persuasiveness of the
“modeéle intérieur”’ lies not in its congruity with scientific truth, but in
the sense of penetration into reality for which the violence of this
imaginative experience is responsible. The following passages from
Baudelaire’s Art romantique are two of many which it would be interest-
ing to compare with Diderot’s descriptions of the “modéle intérieur”’:

En décrivant ce qui, est le poéte se dégrade et descend au rang de professeur;
en racontant le possible, il reste fidéle 4 sa fonction; il est une 4me collective
qui interroge, qui pleure, qui espére et qui devine quelquefois."®

Elle [la Muse de Gautier] aime, ressusciter les villes défuntes, et faire redire
aux morts rajeunis leurs passions interrompues. Elle emprunte au potme, non
pas le métre et Ja rime, mais la pompe ou |’énergie concise de son langage. . . .
L’imagination du lecteur se sent transportée dans le vrai; elle respire le vrai;
elle s’enivre d’une seconde réalité créée par la sorcellerie de la Muse.'*

It is not the interpretation but the observation and analysis of the intrin-
sic persuasiveness of the work of art that it is interesting to see in the
following passage from Bergson:

Chacun d’eux [les produits d’art] est singulier, mais il finira, s’il porte la
marque du génie, par étre accepté de tout le monde. Pourquoi'l’acceptation? Et
s'il est unique en son genre, 4 quel signe reconnait-on qu’il est vrai? Nous le
reconnaissons, je crois, 4 |’effort méme qu’il nous améne 4 faire sur nous pour
voir sincérement 4 notre tour. La sincérité est communicative. Ce que l’artiste
a vu, nous ne le reverrons pas, sans doute, du moins pas tout 4 fait de méme;
mais sil ]’a vu pour tout de bon, |’effort qu’il a fait pour écarter le voile s’im-
pose a notre imitation. Son ceuvre est un exemple qui nous sert de legon. Et a
l’efficacité de la legon se mesure précisément la vérité de I’ceuvre. La vérité
porte donc en elle une puissance de conviction, de conversion méme, qui est la
marque 4 laquelle elle se reconnait.’7

The phrases “imitation de la nature’ and “‘modéle vrai, ligne idéale,”
cannot, therefore, have been used by Diderot with any of the connota-
tions they had for seventeenth-century estheticians. If even the most ex-
tended passages in which Diderot uses the conventional language of his
predecessors are critically examined, it will be clear that the “modéle

15. Baudelaire, “Victor Hugo,” in “Réflexions sur quelques-uns de mes contemporains,”
L’ Art romantique, éd. Pléiade, 1938, 11, 527.

16. Baudelaire, ‘““Théophile Gautier,” L’ Art romantique, Guvres, u, 474.

17. Bergson, Le Rire, 34° éd., 1930, p. 165.

DIDEROT’S ESTHETIC THEORY 283

intérieur’’ he recognizes is not the ideal classical unity in which phenom-
enal multiplicity is contained and resolved, but a particular harmony of
particular beings, nothing of whose integrity and uniqueness has been
sacrificed to the consuming and altering vicissitudes of existence. The
detailed analysis of the “modéle intérieur” given in the following passage
from the Salon de 1767 leaves little doubt as to the validity of this con-
clusion:

Ne convenez-vous pas que tout étre, surtout animé, a ses fonctions, ses pas-
sions déterminées dans la vie; et qu’avec |’exercice et le temps, ces fonctions
ont dd répandre sur toute son organisation une altération si marquée quel-
quefois, qu’elle ferait deviner la fonction? Ne convenez-vous pas que cette
altération n’affecte pas seulement la masse générale; mais qu’il est impossible
qu'elle affecte la masse générale; sans affecter chaque partie prise séparément?
Ne convenez-vous pas que, quand vous avez rendu fidélement, et l’altération
propre a la masse, et l’altération conséquente de chacune de ses parties, vous
avez fait le portrait? Il y a donc une chose qui n’est pas celle que vous avez
peinte, et une chose que vous avez peinte qui est entre le modéle premier et
votre copie. . . . Convenez donc que ce modéle est purement idéal, et qu'il
n’est emprunté directement d’aucune image individuelle de Nature, dont la
copie scrupuleuse vous soit restée dans |’imagination, et que vous puissiez
appeler derechef, arréter sous vos yeux et recopier servilement, 4 moins que
vous ne veuillez vous faire portraitiste. Convenez donc que, quand vous faites
beau, vous ne faites rien de ce qui est, rien méme de ce qui peut étre. Convenez
donc que la différence du portraitiste et de vous, homme de génie, consiste es-
sentiellement en ce que Je portraitiste rend fidélement Nature comme elle est,
et se fixe par godt au troisitme rang; et que vous qui cherchez la vérité, le
premier modéle, votre effort continu est de vous élever au second.®

Such a seemingly conservative passage as this can be most properly re-
lated to one occurring in the section “Du naif et de la flatterie”’ in the
Pensées détachées sur la peinture. The meaning of “‘modéle vrai, ligne
idéale”’ is really assimilable to the meaning of “naif” or “innocent’’:

Pour dire ce que je sens, il faut que je fasse un mot, ou du moins que j’étende
l’acception d’un mot déja fait; c’est naif. Outre la simplicité qu’il exprimait,
il y faut joindre l’innocence, la vérité et l’originalité d’une enfance heureuse
qui n’a point été contrainte; et alors le naif sera essentiel 4 toute production
des beaux-arts; le naif se discernera dans tous les points d’une toile de Raphaél;
le naif sera tout voisin du sublime; le naif se retrouvera dans tout ce qui sera
trés-beau; dans une attitude, dans un mouvement, dans une draperie, dans une
expression. C’est la chose, mais la chose pure, sans la moindre altération. L’art
n’y est plus... . La naiveté est de tous les états: on est naivement héros,

18. Diderot, Salon de 1767, CEuvres, x1, 10-11.

284 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

naivement scélérat, naivement dévot, naivement beau, naivement orateur,
naivement philosophe. Sans naiveté, point de vraie beauté. On est un arbre, une
fleur, une plante, un animal naivement. Je dirais presque que de l'eau est
naivement de |’eau, sans quoi elle visera 4 l’acier poli ou au cristal. La naiveté
est une grande ressemblance de l’imitation avec la chose, accompagnée d’une
grande facilité de faire: c’est de l’eau prise dans le ruisseau, et jetée sur la
toile.!*

Thus Diderot is brought much closer to Baudelaire” than to the Abbé
Batteux, the Salons much closer to the Réve de D’ Alembert than to Aris-
totle’s Poetics, the artist closer perhaps to the prophet than to the philo-
sophe.

Our discussion begs at this point to be related to Professor Dieck-
mann’s penetrating study of Diderot’s conception of genius." We are
invited to do so not only by Professor Dieckmann, but by Diderot him-
self, who often bases his speculations on the genius on examples taken
from the arts. We have already observed how important a réle Dide-
rot’s sensitivity to art, literature and music played in the interpretation
of the psycho-physiological data quoted from the Réve de D’ Alembert
and the Eléments de physiologie. Studying the celebrated critical passages
which give evidence of Diderot’s astonishingly modern esthetic appre-
ciation, Professor Dieckmann lays at his door an essential contribution
to the development of the concept of genius. Before the nineteenth cen-
tury, Diderot first saw the genius as a special type of individual instead
of as an ordinary man of super-eminent talent, that is, what had been
seen as a difference merely of degree came, through Diderot, to be seen
as a difference of kind. The contribution, in the significance attached to
it by Professor Dieckmann, has a positive corollary in the field of esthet-
ics which we shall consider presently, but for now we can establish
with even greater certainty than before that Diderot’s “modéle vrai,
ligne idéale’’ is neither classical nor rational, and that his “modéle in-
térieur”’ is true not because it is general, but because it is unique.

19. Diderot, Pensées détachées sur la peinture, uvres, xu, 121-122.

20. Both the similarity and the divergence between the attitudes of Diderot and Baudelaire
are interestingly brought out in this passage: “‘Or, si je me souviens qu’en trois ou quatre en-
droits de ses poésies notre poéte [Banville], voulant orner des femmes d’une beauté non com-
parable et non égalable, dit qu’elles ont des tétes d’ enfants. C’est 14 une espéce de trait de génie
particuliérement lyrique, c’est-a-dire amoureux du surhumain. II est évident que cette expres-
sion contient implicitement cette pensée que le plus beau des visages humains est celui dont
l’usage de la vie, passion, colére, péché, angoisse, souci, n’a jamais terni la clarté ni ridé la sur-
face. Tout poéte lyrique, en vertu de sa nature, opére fatalement un retour vers |’Eden
perdu.” “Théodore de Banville,” in “Réflexions sur quelques-uns de mes contemporains,”
L’ Art romantique, euvres, 1, 548.

21. Herbert Dieckmann, “‘Diderot’s Conception of Genius,” Journal of the History of Ideas,
ll, 151-182.

DIDEROT’S ESTHETIC THEORY 285

To explain why Diderot’s esthetic terminology is at times equivocal
it is enough to remember that he was in most respects far in advance of
his time, even of the other proponents of the Enlightenment, and it was
therefore not always possible to shake off old habits of speech, even
while changing the concepts that sanctioned them. But there may be a
further reason having its roots in the fundamental constitution of Dide-
rot’s mind. In the Réve de D’ Alembert there is no confusion between
emotional instability—organic anarchy—and imaginative feeling or crea-
tive intuition—perception of relationships and analogies within the cen-
ter of consciousness. But while there is an attempt to account for the
subjective quality of intuitive or esthetic experience, the experience
taken alone has no cognitive value, no place in a hierarchy of knowledge.
Like the poetic analogy or metaphor, the scientist’s hypothesis is a
“hunch,”’ not true unless corroborated empirically. Not so for the poet,
however, who is so carried away by the suggestive power of his experi-
ence that no corroboration is necessary. Thus the poet and the philosophe
are differentiated by their criterion of truth. Diderot, unable in the last
analysis to accept the feeling by which art is made persuasive as a source
of truth, may have unconsciously turned to his feeling for the harmony
and richness of nature for an explanation of the convincing power of
artistic experience. The terms “imitation de la nature” and “esprit ob-
servateur” which we find in the Salon de 1767 fit in better with a macro-
cosmic reality and an empirical epistemology than with the conception
of nature as symbolic and of poetry as “emblématique.”’ At times Dide-
rot felt the subtlety of natural harmony so keenly that he could say,
“L’harmonie du plus beau tableau n’est qu’une bien faible imitation de
l’harmonie de la nature. Le plus grand effort de l’art consiste souvent a4
sauver la difficulté.”’** Thus the variance in Diderot’s language may be a
reflection of a dialectic that Professor Dieckmann interprets as the con-
flict between the empirical and intuitive tendencies of Diderot’s mind.™

A point of esthetic theory that would come to the support of Professor
Dieckmann’s contention, and that itself appears more significant when
placed in the context of his far-reaching analysis, is that in the Réve de
D’ Alembert, where Diderot’s esthetic speculations take a strictly scien-
tific form, the mystery of the “hiéroglyphe,” of “la poésie embléma-
tique”’ is not directly treated. The problem is brought up, but by-passed:

22. Essential to the understanding of this side of Diderot is the study by Herbert Dieck-
mann, “‘Diderots Naturempfinden und Lebensgefiihl,” in Publications de la Faculté des Lettres
de I’ Université d’ Istanbul, Istambul, 1937, u, 57-83.

23. Diderot, Pensées détachées sur la peinture, Geuvres, xu, 81.

24. Dieckmann, “Diderot’s Conception of Genius,” Journal of the History of Ideas, u, 173-
174.

286 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

D’ Alembert—Mais son récit [celui de ’homme de génie] exagére, omet des
circonstances, en ajoute, défigure le fait ou I’embellit, et les instruments sensibles
adjacents congoivent des impressions qui sont bien celles de ]’instrument qui
résonne, mais non celle de la chose qui s’est passée.

Bordeu.—l] est vrai, le récit est historique ou poétique. . . . Le fait est un
motif donné que chaque musicien sent 4 sa guise.

Mademoiselle de T Espinasse—...Je dirais que chaque idée en réveille
d’autres, et que, selon son tour de téte ou son caractére, on s’en tient aux idées
qui représentent le fait rigoureusement, ou !’on y introduit les idées réveillées;
je dirais qu’entre ces idées il y a du choix; je dirais . . . que ce seul sujet traité
4 fond fournirait un livre.2®

It would be unfair to imply that Diderot refused to deal with the diffi-
culty, because it is from several other passages, of which the Fragment
sur le génie®® is typical, that Professor Dieckmann draws his conclusion
that in Diderot critical reason is forced to recognize its own limits.
Whether the problem of the legitimacy of feeling in thought really
existed for Diderot or not, his esthetic speculations have enduring value
because they are based on experience and placed in a genuinely philo-
sophical frame of reference. By the free interplay of a sensitive nature
and a strict empirical philosophy we are given all the major elements of a
modern esthetic theory. Investigators have not tired of pointing out pre-
romantic and pre-symbolist traits in Diderot’s criticism, and these are
the very traits that he tried hardest to adapt to his physiological expla-
nations of human life. His famous paradox of sensibility, perhaps too
sharp in the Paradoxe sur le comédien, assumes its greatest philosophical
dignity in the Réve de D’ Alembert. Here it is no longer a paradox but one
of the problems of artistic experience for which is thrown out the hy-
pothesis of a variable equilibrium between the center of consciousness
and the organs of sense. When these are too easily affected by external
events, so that the brain is subordinated to onslaughts of passion or emo-
tion, the person loses his ability both to create and to criticize. His re-
ceptivity in relation to the “modéle intérieur”’ is lessened as his sensibil-
ity, or organic anarchy, is increased. Seen in its relation to the theory of
genius, the paradox is a summary of Diderot’s evolution away from
emotion originating in the senses towards an appreciation of real crea-
tive feeling as a faculty of the imagination.2” The distinction between
these two kinds of feeling is essential if any esthetic theory is to stand
the confrontation with actual artistic experience. Baudelaire offers a
25. Diderot, Réve de D’ Alembert, Guvres, u, 178-179.

26. Diderot, Fragment sur le génie, uvres, tv, 26-27.
27. Dieckmann, Joc. cit., p. 170.

DIDEROT’S ESTHETIC THEORY 287

striking confirmation of Diderot’s supposed paradox, revealing in yet
another instance the delicacy of his judgment:

Le cceur contient la passion, le coeur contient le dévouement, le crime; |’Ima-
gination seule contient la poésie. . . . La sensibilité de cceur n’est pas absolu-
ment favorable au travail poétique. . . . La sensibilité de l’imagination est d’une
autre nature; elle sait choisir, juger, comparer, fuir ceci, rechercher cela,
rapidement, spontanément. C’est de cette sensibilité, qui s’appelle générale-
ment le Godt, que nous tirons la puissance d’éviter le mal et de chercher le bien
en matiére poétique.2*

Though Diderot passed eventually out of his susceptibility to mere
emotion in art, and even more quickly out of rampant didacticism in the
Richardson manner, he never lost his profound humanism. Logically, his
theories of genius and of art were amoralistic, as they had to be to insure
the freedom from ethical and esthetic prejudice which is the sine qua non
of artistic creation. In practice, Diderot would never have exchanged
beauty for morality, or even let moral issues obscure his perception of
beauty, but he sometimes, as is well known, indulged himself in the op-
posite direction. He continued also to thirst so for social freedom and
enlightenment, for the increase of human happiness, that he never al-
lowed morality to be cast out of the temple of the Muses. In the same
Pensées détachées sur la peinture in which occur the perspicacious obser-
vations on the naif which were previously cited (and the naif is by im-
plication amoral), we find Diderot exclaiming, “Deux qualités essen-
tielles 4 l’artiste, la morale et la perspective.’’®® There is no real con-
flict here. If one arose, Diderot would cede all to the artist. It is our
good fortune and certainly a source of satisfaction to Diderot to know
that in most cases the artist is the singer, not the rebel, of society. In his
view of the artist Diderot is at once artist, philosopher and man, and on
these three levels his esthetic speculations may be ranged. It is the con-
clusion, not the beginning, of the self-portrait in the letter to Sophie Vol-
land that is true.

EvLeanor M. WALKER
Columbia University

28. Baudelaire, ““Théophile Gautier,” L’ Art romantique, Guvres, u, 468-469.
29. Diderot, Pensées détachées sur la peinture. Euvres, xu, 83.

ALFRED DE VIGNY AND POSITIVISM

THE PROBLEM OF LEADERSHIP in democratic societies, the claims to rec-
ognition and the social responsibilities of an élite gifted with imagination
and insight:—these are the questions raised in many of Vigny’s writ-
ings, but in none more importantly than in his drama Chatterton (1835)
and in the poem La Maison du berger (1844).

The poet’s views on these still burning questions suggest an affinity
of his thought to that of Auguste Comte. The hypothesis that Vigny
owes something to Positivism is not new. It was first made by Dorison.?
But it has never been verified in detail. Flottes, in other respects a per-
spicacious critic, is at a loss to explain certain parallels between the
poems, especially La Maison du berger, and the (later) Systéme de poli-
tique positive; he is perplexed to find Positivist ideas in Vigny before
they appear in Comte!?

It is in the relation of both Comte and Vigny to the Saint-Simonian
movement that we shall seek to find the key to the problem.’ Comte be-
came Saint-Simon’s secretary in August 1817. Then a youth of nine-
teen, he collaborated with him on various publications until early in
1822, when he published under his own name (followed by the words

“éléve de Saint-Simon’’) the Plan des travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour
réorganiser la société.* The parting of the ways came over the issue of
what is now called a “directive.”’ Saint-Simon’s system® is one which di-

1. L. Dorison, Un Symbole soci«l: Alfred de Vigny et la poésie politique (1894, Perrin).

2. La Pensée politique et sociale d’ Alfred de Vigny (1927, Belles-Lettres), pp. 240-243.

3. Vigny’s interest in Saint-Simonism dates from 1829: Journal d’un poéte (Scholartis
Press), pp. 67, 77, 88, 216-217; Correspondance (Conard), 1, 193-194, 115. It is reflected in
his writings of the period 1831-1839. He was introduced to the doctrine by Buchez, under
whose influence he at one time contemplated taking an active part in the movement (“Je m’oc-
cupe de la Doctrine de Saint-Simon . . . Dans la politique, me mettre 4 la téte des producteurs.”
Journal, December 1829). The events which led to the schism of Bazard (1831) dampened his
enthusiasm without diminishing his interest in the rational ideas of the school.

4. Reprinted under the title Systéme de politique positive in 1824, without the qualification,
this work may now be read with Comte’s juvenilia in the Appendice Général du Systéme de
politique positive (Paris, 1854).

5. Foreseeing the rise of an “economic feudalism,”’ Saint-Simon proposed the creation of
what he called an Industrial State, in which the machinery of government and of production
should be organized on scientific lines for the exploitation du globe par I’ activité matérielle, in-
tellectuelle et morale de I’ humanité associée. Science and industry were the sources to which he
looked for initiative. He was not a democrat; the doctrine of popular sovereignty he rejected
as too arbitrary. Du systéme industriel (1821-1822, Renouard, 3 vols.). Catéchisme des Indus-
triels (1823-1824, Sétier, 3 vols.). Complete works in Cuvres de Saint-Simon et d’ Enfantin
(1865-1878, Dentu and Leroux), xv, xvi—xxim, xxxvu-xL. G. Weill, Un Précurseur du So-
cialisme: Saint-Simon et son euvre (1894, Perrin); L’Ecole Saint-Simonienne, son histoire, son
influence jusqu’ d nos jours (1896, Alcan). S. Charléty, Histoire du Saint-Simonisme (1931, Hart-
mann; first ed., 1896, Hachette).

ALFRED DE VIGNY AND POSITIVISM 289

vides administrative authority between technicians, artists and indus-
triels, but gives executive power to the industriels alone, i.e. to Capital
and Labor. Comte felt that Saint-Simon was too preoccupied with solu-
tions in the “temporal” sphere and too little alive to the urgency of the
“spiritual” problem. As he wrote to a friend on 25 December 1824:

Je regarde toutes les discussions sur les institutions comme de pures niaise-
ries, jusqu’a ce que la réorganisation spirituelle de la société soit effectuée ou
du moins trés avancée; et c’est un des points capitaux sur lesquels je suis ab-
solument opposé a Saint-Simon, par exemple, qui voudrait commencer par la
réorganisation temporelle.

The evolution of modern society towards Industrialism seemed to him
to create a special need for intelligent and disinterested leadership, and
to this problem all his writings from now on were addressed. The rela-
tion of Comte’s thought to that of Saint-Simon is a question which we
leave to psychologists, philosophers and sociologists.’ It was not until
1826 that Comte began elaborating his own system as it appears in the
Cours de philosophie positive (1830-1842, 6 volumes); in the meantime,
so far from breaking away from Saint-Simonism altogether, he had made
an important contribution to the French Socialist movement by publish-
ing in the journal Le Producteur, founded by Saint-Simon’s disciples upon
his death in 1825, three papers entitled “Considérations philosophiques
sur les sciences et les savants” which are now little read, as well as some
important ‘“‘Considérations sur le pouvoir spirituel.’”®

These early writings show modern civilization to be in a state of
“anarchy” as a result of the disorganization of the spiritual authority
held during the Middle Ages by the universal Catholic Church, and
point to the growing domination of economic materialism as a symptom
of social chaos. To remedy its ravages, Comte places no confidence in
the industriels. He writes:

Les intéréts® absolument abandonnés a eux-mémes, sans aucune autre dis-
cipline que celle qui résulte de leur propre antagonisme, finissent toujours par

6. Lettres d Valat, pp. 156-157.

7. It has been much debated. Paul Janet, La Philosophie d’ Auguste Comte, R.D.M., Lxxxu
(1887), 593-629. Georges Dumas, Saint-Simon pére du positivisme, Revue Philosophique,
Lvl (1904), 135-157, 262-287; Psychologie de deux messies positivistes: Saint-Simon et
Auguste Comte (1905, Alcan). Lévy-Bruhl, La Philosophie d’ Auguste Comte (1900, Alcan),
pp. 345-346. E. Durkheim, Saint-Simon fondateur du positivisme et de la sociologie, Revue
Philosophique, xcrx (1925), 321-341; Le Socialisme, sa définition, ses débuts. La Doctrine Saint-
Simonienne, (1928, Alcan). Henri Gouhier, La Jeunesse d’ Auguste Comte et la formation du
positivisme (1933-1936, Vrin, 2 vols.).

8. Le Producteur, November 1825 and March 1826. Reprinted in the Supplement to the
Systéme de politique positive.

9. Material interests are meant, in particular the conflicting economic interests of Capital
and Labor. A footnote refers to labor troubles in England.

290 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

atteindre le degré d’opposition directe. De 14 résulte donc la nécessité fonda-
mentale d’une régle morale, et, par suite, d’une autorité spirituelle indispensa-
bles pour les contenir dans ces limites ou, au lieu de lutter, ils convergent.

In other words, he is not to be reconciled to the prospect of the course
of human history being governed by the conflict of blind economic
forces. On the contrary, he vindicates the authority of the mind and will
of man over those forces; and it is for that reason that he thinks it impor-
tant to set up a new “spiritual authority.” Its function is to be double.
Within the nation, he defines it as “le gouvernement de l’opinion; c’est-
a-dire |’établissement et le maintien des principes qui doivent présider
aux divers rapports sociaux.” In the international sphere the most im-
portant aim is “‘la réunion de tous les peuples européens, et en général du
plus grand nombre de nations possible, dans une méme communion
morale.’’!° In both spheres the means of action are to be educational in
the wider sense of the word.

Obviously such an authority must be vested in a group or class able to
judge of the general interest and itself disinterested enough to be above
suspicion. It was mainly for that reason that Comte nominated for the
responsibility the corps scientifique." He argued further that that body
constituted the only true [ternational actually in being.

Il est sensible que les savants seuls forment une véritable coalition, compacte’
active, dont tous les membres s’entendent et se correspondent avec facilité et
d’une maniére continue, d’un bout de l'Europe 4 |’autre. Cela tient 4 ce qu’eux
seuls aujourd’hui ont des idées communes, un langage uniforme, un but d’ac-
tivité général et permanent.”

Finally, the scientists were best fitted for the task of constructing a
civilization based upon scientific principles: “Les savants doivent au-
jourd’hui élever la politique au rang des sciences d’observation.’”® It is,
however, to be noted that Comte’s writings of the Saint-Simonian period

10. Communion morale. By this is implied that a community of beliefs and sentiments is
fundamental to the existence of a civilized society. Comte agrees that any profound divergence
of material interests is bound to lead to a breakdown; that is why, as we have seen, he re-
fuses to follow Saint-Simon in entrusting the industriels with directive power. But he is
equally emphatic that no nation or interest has the right to hope or fear against the civilized
world. His concept of moral communion which led him later to formulate his Religion of
Humanity is a parallel to the democratic and revolutionary concept of solidarity, of which
Pierre Leroux was the chief contemporary exponent (De I’ Humanité, 1840).

11. Saint-Simon thought that the administration of public affairs by intellectuals could
only result in the corruption of the corps scientifique, which would become infected with the
vices of the clergy: CEuvres, x1x, 30. But in his first published work, the Lettres d’un habitant
de Genéve a ses contemporains (1802), he proposed, as a memorial to Newton, the creation on
international territory of a library, a school and model laboratories, the whole institution to
be controlled by a Council of Scholars who would be guaranteed freedom to work in peace
and would upon occasion offer advice to the various national governments.

12. Plan des travaux scientifiques, in Supplement to Systéme de politique positive, pp. 74-75.
13. Ibid., p. 77.

ALFRED DE VIGNY AND POSITIVISM 291

gave the artists a place of equal influence; and in this connection must

be recalled the words which he wrote in the Plan des travaux scientifiques
of 1822:

On ne passionnera jamais la masse des hommes pour un systéme quelconque
en leur prouvant qu'il est celui dont la marche de la civilisation, depuis son
origine, a préparé l’établissement, et qu’elle appelle aujourd’hui 4 diriger la
société. Une telle vérité est 4 la portée d’un trop petit nombre d’esprits, et exige
méme de leur part une trop longue suite d’opérations intellectuelles, pour
qu elle pufisse jamais passionner. . .'* Telle est la part réservée aux beaux-arts
dans l’entreprise générale de la réorganisation sociale.!®

In his readings of Saint-Simonian literature,’* Vigny can hardly have
overlooked the essay in which Comte constitutes the intelligentsia the
élite sociale. He repeatedly speaks in 1830-1832 of an “aristocratie de

Pintelligence.’!” Let us examine his Chatterton in the light of Comte’s
ideas.

I. The Poet and Society. “Le Pouvoir déclare qu’il ne protége que les
intéréts positifs,” says the Preface. In other words, those material inter-
ests which Comte considers anti-social alone receive official recognition
at the hands of the government of Louis-Philippe. The position of the
“spiritual” class has thus become acute. It is this class, “ceux qui ten-
tent sans cesse d’idéaliser leur nation malgré elle,” that is represented in
the rdle of Thomas Chatterton and placed in antagonism with the rep-
resentatives of “temporal” authority—Beckford and John Bell.!* The
immediate problem is economic: how to secure to poets, and indeed to
intellectuals in general, their means of livelihood. And the solution pro-
posed, that the State provide pensions for the most meritorious, has for
its context the Saint-Simonian project of a Crédit Intellectuel which is also
reflected in Comte;'* in return for State support it was understood that

14. Cf. Saint-Simon’s famous adage: “Pour faire de grandes choses, il faut étre passionné.””

15. Supplement, Systéme de politique positive, pp. 105—106.

16. “J’aurais voulu vous parler de la doctrine de Saint-Simon qui m’occupe souvent.
N’en existe-t-il pas d’autres débris que celui que vous m’avez prété dont on puisse faire une
construction entiére afin de pouvoir la mesurer ensuite? J’ai, sur |’état actuel de la société,
des idées qui m’agitent et m’affligent et me travaillent le jour et la nuit; je n’ai vu qu’un point
de réunion entre elles et celles de Saint-Simon, mais il m’a fait plaisir.” Vigny, Correspon-
dance, 1, 193-194 (9 September, 1829).

17. Journal (7 January, 1831), p. 54. “La seule Aristocratie qui doive régner 4 jamais sur
le monde comme elle I’a toujours fait malgré lui, je veux dire celle des Esprits supérieurs,
qui seront les pontifes et les rois de la terre 4 mesure qu’elle réunira ses sociétés en une seule
famille,”’ Correspondance (Conard), 1, (4 January, 1830) 214. The expression recurs in Stello,
(Delagrave) (1832), p. 226.

18. “Le Poéte était tout pour moi; Chatterton n’était qu’un nom d’homme.” Derniére
nuit de travail.

19. By the side of the other credit institutions they were engaged in creating (e.g. the
Crédit Foncier) Saint-Simon’s followers proposed the establishment of a Crédit Intellectuel;
but failed to convince their contemporaries that intellectual capacity, however socially de-
sirable, constituted security for the investment of funds as sound as real estate. Comte asks

292 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

the intelligentsia would abstain from political activities, the better to
serve those great moral ends which were committed to its especial care.
Such is precisely the position which Vigny takes in Stello; and it is note-
worthy that the democratic Revue Encyclopédique expressed displeasure
with his attitude of ‘‘armed neutrality’’*° at the time (September 1832).
He recurs to it in La Maison du berger, blaming by implication Lamartine
for having betrayed his mission by entering the political arena. It has
often been pointed out that Vigny’s whole work is written in defense of
élites; and for a full statement of the case presented in Chatterton it is in-
dispensable to take into account not only Ste/lo but the sequel Daphné,
first published in 1913. In this work the Poet reappears as a Philosopher-
King, and it becomes clear that Vigny’s defence of the poet was no
mere pro domo argument but a justification of the raison d’étre of the intel-
lectual class, or “capacity,” as a whole. We read in some notes written
in 1837 for this novel:

On ne peut trop attaquer et censurer les sociétés pour tacher de les moraliser,
de les arracher aux intéréts matériels, de les spiritualiser, de les rendre suscepti-
bles d’enthousiasme pour le beau, le bon, le vrai.

Dans |’ Emmanuel, je dis aux masses ce que j’ai dit dans Stel/o aux hommes
du pouvoir: Vous étes froides, vous n’avez de Dieu que l’or, vous fermez votre
coeur et votre porte 4 ceux qui veulent vous servir et vous épurer et vous
élever. Vous les désespérez, par Ja lenteur avec laquelle vous acceptez les
idées . . . Les plus sensibles en sont morts dans |’action.”

In his attitude towards democratic institutions Vigny to some extent re-
sembles Comte; both abhorred the parliamentary system, regarding it as
government by lawyers and littérateurs.% Some words written in 1826

for government grants to cover the expenses of those engaged in scientific work or esthetic
activities (Systeme de politique positive, 1v, 361).

20. “SEPARER LA VIE POETIQUE DE LA VIE POLITIQUE ...SEUL ET
LIBRE, ACCOMPLIR SA MISSION.” Ordonnance du Docteur Noir, Stello (Delagrave),
pp. 287-289. The desire for independence of ‘“‘Associations” expressed in this famous chap-
ter was prompted by the dictatorial policy of Pére Enfantin, who after the schism presented
himself to his disciples as the living law.

21. Daphné was to have formed part of a larger work never completed.

22. Daphné (Delagrave), p. 195.

23. “La direction intellectuelle du monde politique actuel réside désormais essentielle-
ment, surtout en France, dans la double classe, spontanément homogéne, des légistes et des
métaphysiciens, ou, pour une plus stricte exactitude, des avocats et des littérateurs. . ..”
Cours de philosophie positive, 1v, 124-125.

Ils ont pour horizon leur salle de spectacle;
La chambre ov ces élus donnent leurs faux combats
Jette en vain, dans son temple, un incertain oracle...
Cependant le dédain de la chose immortelle
Tient jusqu’au fond du ceur quelque avocat d'un jour...
La Maison du berger, 183 ff.

ALFRED DE VIGNY AND POSITIVISM 293

by Comte will serve to elucidate the meaning of the concluding words
of the passage just quoted from Daphné:

Ni l’individu ni l’'espéce ne sont destinés 4 consumer leur vie dans une ac-
tivité stérilement raisonneuse, en dissertant continuellement sur la conduite
qu ils doivent tenir. C’est 4 l'action qu’est essentiellement appelée la masse des
hommes, sauf une fraction imperceptible, principalement vouée par nature 4 la
contemplation.*4

Considering popular sovereignty merely an anarchic stage in the
progress of human society, a sort of “metaphysical” transfer of the
principle of Divine Right from kings to peoples,2* Comte saw no
greater need for freedom of opinion in politics than in astronomy,
physics or chemistry; and thought that there were the same reasons,
once the science of social physics was organized, for trusting the opin-
ions of experts in matters political and social as in scientific matters.”
To this point of view Vigny did not subscribe. We find him in 1835,
presumably after reading Tocqueville’s La Démocratie en Amérique
which had just appeared, warmly approving of the federal system of
government as practised in the United States;”” while in the poem
Les Oracles he condemns the statesmen of the July Monarchy for having
brought about the Revolution of 1848 by their unwillingness to com-
promise with democracy.* Chatterton nevertheless presents in essence
the Comtist dream of an intellectual aristocracy. It seems fair to infer
that he regarded it as a solution to the problem of leadership in demo-
cratic societies, a suggestion which has been revived not without éclat
by our contemporary Humanists.”

Il. The defence of Poetry. Vigny’s drama is above all a vindication
of poetic action. The fact has been imperfectly understood; and to
demonstrate it we turn again to Comte.

The problem which we are asked to consider is in its larger aspect
cultural. How, in a materialistic, bourgeois society, are we to be sure

24. Considérations sur le pouvoir spirituel, quoted in Cours de philosophie positive, ww,
48n.

25. Plan des travaux scientifiques (1822), in Supplement to the Systéme de politique positive,
p. 54; Cours de philosophie positive, 1v, 55-56.

26. Plan des travaux scientifiques (1822), ibid., p. 53; Cours de philosophie positive, 1,
44-45.
27. “Le seul gouvernement dont, a présent, I’idée ne me soit pas intolérable, c'est celui
d’une république dont la constitution serait pareille 4 celle des Etats-Unis américains.”
Journal (Scholartis), p. 102.

28. Toute Démocratie est un désert de sables:

Il y fallait batir, si vous eussiez compris.

The poet may well have been thinking of the wiser policy pursued by the Conservative
Party in England under Sir Robert Peel.
29. Irving Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership (1924).

294 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

of preserving such immaterial values as art, pure science, and, in the
last analysis, civilization itself? The menace to science of bourgeois
utilitarianism is a familiar theme of Comte’s. The reason why Posi-
tivism attaches such importance to the “speculative” class and claims
privilege for it is social. As a philosopher, Comte fully realized that
disinterested speculation was for science a condition sine qua non.
Only by being “impractical,” i.e. theoretic, can science be of any use
to humanity. Comte’s favorite example was taken from Geometry.
When the ancient Greek mathematicians made their historic study of
conic sections they little thought (he points out) that one result of
their labors would be to save sailors’ lives. It is impossible to foresee
what theoretic activities, however impractical they may seem today,
may tomorrow assume the greatest practical importance. To science
itself, what is practical is that that instrument of precision, the mind,
should function with maximum efficiency. This it ceases to do when
the scientist allows himself to be absorbed in considerations either of
private interest or of immediate applicability. The scientific mind feeds
on theory and hypothesis; it strives to come by theoretic conceptions
of the universe. Vigny calls this “living according to the conditions of
its nature’’*° and agrees with Comte in declaring the alternative sui-
cidal.*!

What we find in Chatterton is substantially the scientific attitude
transferred to the field of action of the poet. Ironically, in the process
it seems to have lost much of its meaning. Nothing could illustrate
more sharply than a review of criticism of this play the retreat before
bourgeois utilitarianism of the great cultural idealism of the past cen-
tury.** Comte himself is not to be acquitted of the charge of having, in
his Cours de philosophie positive (1830-1842), contributed to its downfall
by excluding poets, artists and religious thinkers from the intellectual-
ist category and reserving it to scientists. It is true that he reinstated
them in his Systéme de politique positive (1851-1854) as ‘membres acces-
soires du pouvoir spiritual.’’** His disciples, however, rejected the mys-

30. Derniére nuit de travail. He does not ask for the Poet merely “le droit de vivre,” but
“de vivre selon les conditions de sa nature.”

31. This résumé of Comte’s theory of science follows closely Lévy-Bruhl’s in La Phi-
losophie d’ Auguste Comte (1900, Alcan), pp. 69-70.

32. M. Emile Lauvriére, for instance, presents Vigny as a pathological case. His edition
of Chatterton (1908, Oxford) takes for its motto the Quaker’s remark to the poet: “En toi,
la réverie continuelle a tué l’action,” and the Notes discuss Vigny’s ‘“‘mental impotence.”
Clearly M. Lauvriére considered concentration (“réverie’’) unnecessary to poetic action; it
is, of course, that kind of action which is the subject of the play, as is evident from Chatter-
ton’s reply: “‘N’y a-t-il pour Il’homme que le travail du corps? et le labeur de la téte n’est-il
pas digne de quelque pitié?”’

33. Cours de philosophie positive, tv, 124-125. Systéme de politique positive, 1, 279.

ALFRED DE VIGNY AND POSITIVISM 295

ticism of the latter work; Taine in particular, in assigning to Science
the mission of ascertaining facts, unconsciously supplied the fetish
(to use the Comtist term) for which the Gradgrinds of the century
were looking, and at the same time assumed a share of responsibility
for the process by which nineteenth-century scholarship, adopting a
policy not unlike that of King Louis-Philippe, resolved to recognize
only positive, viz. natural, facts. This is the process which came to be
associated with the word Positivism, regardless of Comte’s insistence
on subordinating the knowledge of external reality to the discovery
of social and political Jaws. It is clear that in Comte’s time the term
theoretic was already fast becoming a term of abuse. In the Producteur
of November 1825 we find him objecting to the tendency to confuse
the scientist with the engineer:

Les savants, loin d’avoir a restreindre leur sentiment profond de la dignité
théorique, doivent au contraire résister avec obstination 4 toutes les tentatives
qui pourraient étre faites, vu l’esprit trop pratique du siécle actuel, pour les
réduire 4 de simples fonctions d’ingénieurs.**

Presently it came to be thought flattering to a scientist to call him
“practical.” Even in Education there was a trend towards evaluating
knowledge in frankly instrumental terms. The great progress in tech-
nology made in the course of the century was accompanied, as Pro-
fessor Whitehead has shown,** by a decline in the capacity for gener-
alization. These developments are not without relevance to a certain
evaluation of poetry which then gained currency; they instance the
state of mind which made Vigny’s argument increasingly unpopular
and eventually almost unintelligible. The figures for the performances
of Chatterton at the Comédie-Frangaise from 1835 to 1900 are a docu-
ment of social psychology .**

In a sense, the history of the nineteenth century is that of Saint-
Simon’s triumph over Comte, or, more accurately, of the triumph over
both of the Zeitgeist. The Saint-Simonians went on to create banking
institutions and merge railroads, while Comte, carrying out the ideas
of his younger days, devoted his life to the organization of the new
science of “social physics” which he had described in Le Producteur

34. “‘Considérations philosophiques sur les sciences et les savants.”’ In England the trend
is discernible much earlier. See Coleridge on the obstacles which an English metaphysician
has to encounter, Biographia Literaria (Everyman), p. 150.

35. Science and the Modern World (1926, Macmillan).

36. They are:

1835—1840—s54 performances
1857-1858—15 ts

1877 29 “
1895—1900— 2 es

296 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

as “la seule base possible du nouvel état social.’”” The Preface of the
Systéme de politique positive (1851) has the motto, from Vigny:
Qu’est-ce qu’une grande vie?—Une pensée de la jeunesse, exécutée par
lage mir.*7
So arose the science of Sociology. Its pioneer was an obscure teach-
er of Mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique, whose salary was so
small that only by teaching at private schools for six to eight hours
a day was he able to make a living. We have Comte’s word for it
that in six years he never knew what it was to have twenty consecutive
days of complete leisure; and this was the time at which his master-
piece, the Cours de philosophie positive, was written. Expelled from his
official position on completion of this great work and prevented from ob-
taining another post by what he describes as the routine-loving Pedan-
tocracy, he spent his declining years dependent upon the charity of his
friends to whom he sent every year pathetic appeals for help. In 1857,
the year in which the prosperous France of the Second Empire of-
ficially condemned the most important collection of lyric poetry in the
French language, the Fleurs du mal, and prosecuted the author of
Madame Bovary, in all probability the masterpiece of the French novel,
the greatest French philosopher since Descartes died in Paris; a pauper.

In his latter years Comte elaborated a Religion of Humanity, with
a ritual, a catechism and a hierarchy at whose head stood the beatified
figure of his dead sweetheart Clotilde de Vaux,** in whom he strangely
discovered the Woman Messiah the Saint-Simonians had sought in
vain. Availing itself of the resources of art, and of the “feminine”
powers of intuition, enthusiasm and compassion, the Positivist Church
was to deliver society from the dissolvent influences of a selfish in-
dividualism and remedy the imperfections which science and tech-
nology leave in our knowledge of things.

These developments are foreshadowed in La Maison du berger (1844).
Part of this poem consists of a criticism of the Machine Age: the part
omitted in anthologies, or awkwardly “explained” as a more or less
gratuitous diatribe against railroads.*® The symbol of the railway train
was of course suggested by the promotion activities of the Saint-

37. The correct wording of this often misquoted aphorism is: ““Amis, qu’est-ce qu’une
grande vie, sinon une pensée de la jeunesse exécutée par |’d4ge mir?’’ Cing-Mars, chap. xx
(Delagrave, 1, 95).

38. Systéme de politique positive (1851-1854), 4 vols. Catéchisme positiviste (1852).

39. Que Dieu guide a son but la vapeur foudroyante

Sur le fer des chemins qui traversent les monts ... (ll. 64 ff.)

ALFRED DE VIGNY AND POSITIVISM 297

Simonians; it offered a contrast to the maison du berger, symbol of a
fuller and more reflective and more poetic life. The poet approves of
technical advances provided they be laid at the service of true civiliza-
tion; but with Comte he considers it the fatal error of the Saint-
Simonians to have confused technique with culture.*® What is most
remarkable in these thoughtful and prophetic lines is the intuition
of the dangers reserved in the future for a society whose idols were
machines. “Nous nous sommes joués 4 plus fort que nous tous.” The
time came which poet and philosopher had foreseen, when separatist
“interests,” owing allegiance to no common cause, threatened to break
down the structure of this civilization with the aid of the machines
which it had itself invented, and of which it was prouder than of the
mind that made them.

“Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with
banners,”’*! Vigny’s Eva anticipates the symbolic figure of Clotilde.
She is not to be identified with an individual woman, nor indeed with
Woman; she is what Comte called the Spiritual and what the Saint-
Simonians defined as the “‘capacité sentimentale, religieuse et sociale”
leading not to conflict but to Association.” To life she brings the gift of
poetic insight:

L’enthousiasme pur dans une voix suave.

Her wisdom is the wisdom of the heart, quick to indignation as to
compassion:

Tes paroles de feu meuvent les multitudes,
Tes pleurs lavent l’ injure et les ingratitudes,
Tu pousses par le bras ! homme . . . Il se léve armé.

Art according to Comte was to put itself at the service of Humanity
and of its representative, Woman;* with Vigny, the identification is
complete. He fully shares with Comte, and with Leroux who preceded
him, their Religion of Humanity:

Jaime la majesté des souffrances humaines.

40. A comparison with Baudelaire seems to suggest itself. “La vraie civilisation . . . n’est
pas dans le gaz, ni dans la vapeur, ni dans les tables tournantes. Elle est dans la diminution des
traces du péché originel.”’ Journaux intimes (Crés), p. 82. But the difference is noteworthy.
Baudelaire’s thought is closest to Ballanche, and to his dogma of [initiation par la Douleur
(of which there is an able summary in the Belles-Lettres edition of La Ville des Expiations,
pp. xxvii-xxxvi, by A. Rastoul). It is hostile to the determinism of Taine (“‘le vice et la
vertu sont des produits comme le vitriol et le sucre,” Histoire de Ja littérature anglaise, Ha-
chette, Introduction, p. xv).

41. The description of Eva (Il. 239-245) is drawn from the Song of Songs.

42. The word too great to be uttered (1. 266), Comte’s communion.

43. Edward Caird, The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte (Glasgow 1893), Pp. 44-

298 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

He will not commit the “tragic fallacy” of thinking that we can com-
mune with Nature; Nature is a beautiful décor for a poet’s Solitude,
and nothing more. Unconscious and necessary,*® she is not moral
nor does she suffer; she has therefore nothing in common with us.
And if she is too far below us, the Gods are too far above. How should
we love the perfect?

Aimez ce que jamais on ne verra deux fois.

The Gods do not suffer. From balcony seats they watch unmoved the
comédie humaine.* In philosophic terms, they are not of our “uni-
verse of discourse.” Not even Pascal expresses more poignantly than
Vigny in the concluding lines of this great poem the pathos and dignity
of man’s transitory life, instinct with one supreme value: the value of
personality. The poem ends with a magnificent evocation of generations
dead and yet to come. Looking out from his solitary hut, the shepherd
turns visionary, inspired with the thought of human solidarity through
Time. This is precisely Comte’s main religious idea: “L’humanité se
compose de plus de morts que de vivants.’’*”? To the sociologist humanity
is more real than man, and just as there is a solidarity of individuals
and of peoples living at a given time, so also between successive genera-
tions, past, present, and future, is there no isolation.‘* Such too is the

poet’s message to his living friends:

Nous marcherons ainsi, ne laissant que notre ombre
Sur cette terre ingrate on les morts ont passé;

Nous nous parlerons d eux aT heure on tout est sombre,
On tu te plais a suivre un chemin effacé,

A réver, appuyée aux branches incertaines,

Pleurant, comme Diane au bord de ses fontaines,
Ton amour taciturne et toujours menacé.

D. O. Evans
University of British Columbia

44. “J’aime l’humanité. J’ai pitié d’elle. La Nature est pour moi une décoration dont la
durée est insolente, et sur laquelle est jetée cette passagére et sublime marionnette appelée
homme.” Journal (1835).

45. Lines 297-298 refer to the myth of Er (Republic, x, 614 ff.).

Je suivais dans les cieux ma route accoutumée
Sur Paxe harmonieux des divins balanciers.

46. Compare Le Mont des Oliviers.

47. Quoted by Lévy-Bruhl, p. 386.

48. A parallel concept is Leroux’s doctrine of immortality in the race: ‘““Nous sommes non
seulement les fils et la postérité de ceux qui ont déja vécu, mais au fond et réellement ces
générations antérieures elles-mémes.” De I’ Humanité (1840), title of chapter xii, Book v.
In both cases the concatenation of influences is the same: the Saint-Simonian doctrine of
Humanity as a “collective being”; Leibniz’s Law of Continuity; and eventually Plato’s
Doctrine of Ideas. In Comte’s case there is more than a suspicion of de Maistre.

GERARD DE NERVAL’S
UNFINISHED NOVEL

ON THE FIRST OF MARCH, 1849, the feuilleton of Le Temps of Paris
started the publication of Le Marquis de Fayolle, the only novel to
which Gérard de Nerval has appended his name. It was to appear in
daily installments, but did so irregularly, skipping a date now and
then, until the 27th of the month. It left off temporarily then, but was
resumed with somewhat the same intermittences, from April 26 to
May 16, at which date it took a sort of final French leave from the
“ground floor” of the newspaper, leaving its readers, and us, entangled
in the threads of love and revolution it had woven together.

After Gérard’s death, a certain Edouard Gorges, alleging a friend-
ship of long standing for him, and claiming he had suggested the “‘épi-
sode de la guerre des chouans’* to our author, took it upon himself to
“finir ce roman commencé par lui,”’ and provided it with a dénouement
which distorts the plot, the characters and the tenor of it. The most
charitable thing one can say of his tactless performance is what he
himself wrote in his preface: “Dans ce livre, ce qui est bien est de
lui, ce qui est mal est de moi.” That is literally true.

Granting that in its original and unfinished form Le Marquis de
Fayolle does not measure up to the best that has come from Gérard’s
pen, it is, nevertheless, an imaginatively conceived work that bears
on almost every page the stamp of his sensitive temperament. It is,
in substance, a dramatic narrative modelled, as M. Aristide Marie has
observed,? after the historical tales of his friend Alexandre Dumas.
But the analogy is apparent only on the surface. For Gérard was the
least objective of story writers. He could not conceive and weave
an intrigue without getting himself caught in the meshes of it. He
drew his heroes in his own image, and placed them in situations that
were but reflections of his own often hinted at, but never betrayed,
sentimental life.

Failure to bear in mind this fundamental trait in Gérard’s nature
misled poor Edouard Gorges to commit his literary indiscretion, and
caused later students of the poet to explain variously the mystifying
interruption of the novel in question. M. Marie thinks that the revolu-
tionary upheavals of the day, “les émeutes ouvriéres, le pillage de

1. Le Marquis de Fayolle, Michel Lévy Fréres, Paris, 1856.

2. Gérard de Nerval-Le Poéte-L’Homme. Librairie Hachette & Cie, Paris, 1914, p.
242.

300 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

’

limprimerie Boulé, les élections législatives,” must have turned its
readers’ interest away from the adventures of the Marquis de Fayolle;*
and M. Henri Clouard is inclined to concur in this opinion.‘ The argu-
ment overlooks the fact, however, that the novel deals with a drama of
the Revolution, a topic of most timely character in 1849. It is erected
on a scaffolding of social conflict, of those religious and political con-
siderations and antagonisms that made of Brittany and La Vendée a
center of counter revolution. It portrays in lively style the conspiracies
and open rebellion of the Breton nobility, clergy and subservient and
credulous peasantry against the abolition of the privileges and iniquities
of the old order decreed by the Constituent Assembly. Its hero, the
Marquis de Fayolle, has fought with Lafayette on the side of George
Washington; his illegitimate son, Georges, ignorant of his noble lineage,
and fired with revolutionary ardor, fights under the banner of the
Revolution. Consequently, the atmosphere the novel evoked was not
dissonant with the rekindled political passions of the hour. That its
readers were not indifferent to it is attested to by the avis au lecteur
in Le Temps of May 28, which promised them the resumption on June 6,
of the publication “de la troisiéme partie du beau roman de M. Gérard
de Nerval,” a promise that the latter did not enable the newspaper to
keep, so that it had to turn finally to another roman-feuilleton to fill the
gap left vacant in it, the social upheavals of the moment notwith-
standing.

Gérard must have had valid, if secret, motives for not writing the
third installment heralded by Le Temps. “Est-ce le souci des choses
publiques qui paralysa Nerval?” ponders M. Clouard. “Sans doute, au
moins indirectement,” he observes, “par les difficultés de vie que le
trouble politique jetait dans les existences d’écrivains et de journalistes
littéraires.”® More likely, however, the troubled days he was living
through should have tempted him to seek the relatively immediate
returns that a roman-feuilleton provided, in view, especially, of the ma-
terial difficulties he was struggling with then, as he unfortunately was
nearly always.

With less hesitancy, M. Marie conjectures that the interruption
“n’avait jamais éveillé chez Gérard la moindre velléité d’achévement.’”®
But, as M. Clouard points out justly, “ce Gérard sans-géne nous est
inconnu; il était homme 4 périr de remords pour des engagements non

3. Ibid., p. 242.

4. Introduction: Gérard de Nerval, Le Marquis de Fayolle. Paris, Le Divan, 1928, p. v.

5. Ibid., pp. v-vi,

6. Bibliographie des Geuvres de Gérard de Nerval, avec un Précis sur l'histoire de ses livres,
par Aristide Marie. Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, Paris, 1926, p. xxi.

DE NERVAL’S UNFINISHED NOVEL 301

tenus.”’ Nevertheless, intrigued by the problem, he too, in seeming
contradiction with what he had just affirmed, feels constrained to de-
clare: “Pas un remords ne I’a effleuré, dirait-on, 4 l’égard du Temps
trahi.”’ That the argument appeared to be specious to M. Clouard
himself, however, is made manifest by his phrasing of it. The life
of Gérard de Nerval from the year 1849 on had enough regret in it to
fill his cup to the brim, and perhaps one drop in it came from his real-
ization that he could not finish Le Marquis de Fayolle. For we have
reason to believe that he had not become disinterested in the future
of his abandoned brain child. Circumstantial evidence for this is to be
found in the manuscript list of his complete works which he handed to
Paul Lacroix in the last days of his life, in which Le Marquis de Fayolle
figures for two volumes,*® and for which he, doubtless, planned to write
some day an appropriate finish.

Where then lies the explanation for the interruption? It lies not in
what M. Clouard has described as Gérard’s “souci des choses pu-
bliques,”’ but rather in what might be paraphrased as his “souci des
choses intimes.’”’ As already pointed out, Gérard could not write ex-
cept in front of a mirror—an inner mirror—and Le Marquis de Fayolle
is such a mirror, albeit not a very clear one. Both MM. Marie and
Clouard have, in fact, called attention to Nervalian traits in the char-

acter of its hero. Indeed, M. Clouard sees in this aspect the key io the
present problem, but he does not insert it in the proper lock:

N’est-il pas permis finalement de lire dans ces reflets les signes de I intérét
médiocre que Nerval ressentit pour son héros,” he asks, “puisqu’il ai a subs-
titué mollement, paresseusement, une p4le esquisse tracée d’aprés lui-méme?
. .. La petite flamme de réve, d’4me, d’émotion devant les choses, allumée au
rez-de-chausée d’un quotidien, n’a pu grandir, n’a pu se maintenir. Ne valait-il
pas mieux la laisser s’éteindre? ou, si les circonstances I’ éteignirent, pourquoi
eit-elle été rallumée? Voila, je crois, le motif véritable qui explique les hésita-
tions, l’interruption, puis l’abandon d’un roman auquel Nerval n’osait pourtant,
vis-a-vis de lui-méme, renoncer.®

M. Clouard’s argument that the half-hearted portrayal of himself
in the Marquis de Fayolle accounts for “‘’intérét médiocre que Nerval
ressentit pour son héros,”’ and, hence, for his abandonment of him,
breaks down, however, when it is discovered that Gérard’s hero is not
the one M. Clouard has in mind, but a secondary character in whom his
interest is not at all mediocre, as we shall presently ascertain. A study

7. Op. cit., p. vi.

8. Cf. Bibliographie des uvres de Gérard de Nerval, pp. 15-17.
9. Op. cit., p. viii.

302 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

of the text will reveal that this character in whom Gérard mirrored
himself faithfully is not the adventurous marquis, who had attached
no more importance to his passing /iaison with Héléne de Maurepas than
he had “‘aux mille bonnes fortunes qui avaient accidenté sa vie folle et
dissipée,”?° and who sought her out again twenty years after only to
find out what had become of their illegitimate son; but the real hero
in Gérard’s mind is that son, Georges, with his unhappy and undying,
though unattainable, love for the young chételaine Gabrielle. Their
adventure of love and woe is Gérard’s; it echoes his emotions and
dreams. But since, as was inevitable with him, he had become too deep-
ly involved in it, and he was not ready yet to reveal it to the end in the
place and time in question, he had no other alternative than to break
it off.

That is the clue to the unfinished novel. The evidence is cumulative.
For the first time he lifts there a corner of the veil which covered
his own tale. He tells it hesitatingly now; it is but a sketch, a discreet
version of the remembrances of his past life which, in this year, 1849,
are beginning to crowd in upon him. The story itself is told by a “‘sim-
ple réveur,’’" who is no other than Gérard himself. Like him, Georges’
father, the marquis, “avait lu les savantes réveries de l’abbé de Villars,
de Dom Pernetty et du marquis d’Argens; il avait fait partie des célébres
réunions d’Ermenonville, ot présidait le comte de Saint-Germain.”
His conversation was “tout empreinte des amours célestes de Sweden-
borg, et des théories sur le magnétisme des dmes,”? books and ideas
Gérard was to write about on his own account sometime after in “La
Bibliothéque de mon oncle,” where he says: “‘J’ai, tout jeune, absorbé
beaucoup de cette nourriture indigeste ou malsaine pour |’4me; et,
plus tard méme, mon jugement a eu 4 se défendre contre ces impressions
primitives.”

Likewise Georges, a lad of eighteen at the time the story begins,
who had been brought up as a foundling by a kind priest, the abbé
Huguet, because he had been abandoned by his guilty mother and giddy
father, had also read

bien des livres de philosophie transcendante, dérobés la plupart 4 la bibliothé¢que
du recteur. Les platoniciens |’avaient initié aux mystéres du pur amour; les
poétes italiens de la Renaissance lui avaient rempli la téte de canzones et de son-

10. Le Marquis de Fayolle, p. 103. The quotations from this work refer to the edition of
Le Divan cit.

11. Ibid., p. 7.
12. Ibid., p. 21.
13. Cf. Les Illuminés. Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, Paris, 1929, p. 4-

DE NERVAL’S UNFINISHED NOVEL 303

nets langoureux; les théosophes modernes l’avaient séduit par l'image des
amours mystiques,'*

all of which evokes the sentimental mood Gérard recreates later of his
own youth: “Le Pastor Fido, Faust, Ovide et Anacréon étaient mes
poémes et mes poétes favoris,” he writes in Promenades et Souvenirs.

This boy, Georges, like Gérard at Mortefontaine, grows up in the
solitude of the countryside, his sole companion, the sixteen year old
daughter of the lord of the nearby manor, Gabrielle, who had “de
beaux cheveux chatain clair, presque blonds; ses grands yeux, d’un
bleu pale, lui donnaient une expression de douceur et d’ingénuité char-
mante,”"* a description which recalls Adrienne’s in Sylvie. But if some
of her traits mirror Adrienne’s, Gabrielle is like Sylvie herself in others,
as when Gérard pictures her “‘coiffée d’un chapeau de paille, courant, folle
et légére comme la bergeronnette, 4 travers les bruyéres et les champs
de genéts fleuris!””” or, else, looking like a “‘petite fille 4 demi paysanne,
courant les prés, avec Georges, qui l’accompagnait 4 la ferme,””!* where
they were served always “de la galette chaude, du beurre et des ceufs
frais.”!® The very words will recur under his pen when he will portray
Sylvie, “une petite fille du hameau voisin,” “une enfant sauvage,” with
“ses courses folles” and “son chapeau de paille,” who kept him com-
pany and went with him “‘boire du lait 4 la ferme suisse.”’*°

Georges’ love for Gabrielle was fanned by the pages of La Nouvelle
Héloise: ““Un jour, caché derriére un massif d’aulnes et de coudriers en-
lacés de ronces et d’églantiers, il lisait un volume de la Nouvelle Héloise.
Couché sur le bord de l’étang, il apergut de loin Gabrielle descendre le
jardin, sortir de l’enclos et venir en face de lui, laver ses pieds dans
Peau. . . . C’était Julie! . . . il était Saint-Preux! . . . ”*! The same pas-
sionate work will feed Gérard’s courtship of Sylvie. Walking with her,
along the banks of the Théve river, “je lui parlais,” he says, “de la
Nouvelle Héloise, dont je récitais par coeur quelques passages. ““Est-ce
que c’est joli? dit-elle-——C’est sublime. . . . Et je continuais 4 réciter des
fragments de |’ Héloise pendant que Sylvie cueillait des fraises.”™

14. Le Marquis de Fayolle, p. 128.

15. Cf. Petits Chéteaux de Bohéme-La Bohéme galante. Librairie Ancienne Honoré Cham-
pion, Paris, 1926, p. 207.

16. Le Marquis de Fayolle, p. 29.

17. Ibid., p. 32.

18. Ibid., p. 122.

19. Ibid., p. 34.

20. Cf. Les Filles du Feu. Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, Paris, 1931, pp. 159,
187.

21. Le Marquis de Fayolle, p. 32.

22. Cf. Les Filles du Feu, pp. 171-172.

304 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

One of the most charming episodes of his idy] with Sylvie relates the
visit the two made together to her aunt’s, at Othys. While the old
woman was preparing something for them to eat, they had climbed to
her bedroom, where, upon finding in a drawer the old aunt’s wedding-
dress, “une grande robe en taffetas flambé, qui criait du froissement de
ses plis,” as well as her bridegroom’s “habits de noces,” they had
quickly changed into them, and, holding each other by the hand, they
had gone down the stairs. “La tante poussa un cri en se retournant: ‘O
mes enfants!’ dit-elle, et elle se mit 4 pleurer, puis sourit 4 travers ses
larmes.”’ And so, says Gérard, “nous étions l’époux et |’épouse pour
tout un beau matin d’été.’’

He wrote a variant of this wedding-dress prank at about the same
time, 1852, in a letter to Eugéne de Stadler, in which the heroine of it is
not Sylvie, but “la douce Sidonie.” “Un jour,” he writes, “c’était en
carnaval, nous étions chez sa vieille tante, 4 Carriére; elle eut la fan-
taisie de me faire vétir les habits de noce de mon oncle et s’habilla elle-
méme avec la robe 4 falbalas de ma tante . . . O tendres souvenirs des
aieux! brillants costumes, profanés dans une nuit de folie, que vous
m’avez couté de larmes!”’™

This touching youthful escapade had thus left a deep and lingering

memory in Gérard’s heart. The first account he gives of it, however, is
neither of the two quoted above, but one found in Le Marquis de Fayolle,
with Georges and Gabrielle as the actors:
C’était 4 la ferme d’Yvonne . . . Cette bonne femme nous avait conduits dans
sa chambre et elle nous avait fait voir ses vétements de noce et ceux de son
mari... Vous le rappelez-vous? Ce n’étaient que velours et taffetas. Si bien
que nous eimes |’idée de nous en revétir; nous nous trouvions assez grands
déja pour avoir l’air de deux petits mariés.

Gabrielle sourit 4 travers ses larmes.”®

Finally, not only Gérard’s love for Sylvie, but his love for Jenny
Colon—or Aurélie—at least the important episode of the ring—is re-
flected and broached in the account of Georges’ love for Gabrielle. How-
ever, in this earlier version, it is she who gives her lover her ring at the
time they wear the wedding garb of the farmer and his wife. “‘Ce fut
pour compléter notre déguisement,’’ Georges reminds his affianced,
who is now estranged from him, “‘que vous me fites passer au doigt cet
anneau, que plus tard je ne voulus plus vous rendre . . . Gabrielle, cet
anneau, par pitié, laissez-le moi.”

23. Les Filles du Feu, pp. 172-177.

24. Gérard de Nerval, Correspondance, 1830-1855. Mercure de France, Paris, 1911, pp.
181-183.

25. Le Marquis de Fayolle, p. 130.

26. Ibid., pp. 129-130.

DE NERVAL’S UNFINISHED NOVEL 305

Recalling this incident of the ring, which must have played a mysteri-

ous, and evidently tragic, part in his life, Gérard retells it in Aurélia, in
a somber mood reflecting the black clouds which were gathering thick
over his spirit:
Je fus alors préoccupé d’un souvenir de notre union trop rapide [he writes]. Je
lui avais donné une bague d’un travail ancien dont le chaton était formé d’une
opale taillée en cceur. Comme cette bague était trop grande pour son doigt,
j'avais eu l’idée fatale de la faire couper pour en diminuer |’anneau; je ne com-
pris ma faute qu’en entendant la scie. I] me sembla voir couler du sang. . . .27

When he wrote these lines, Gérard had made his second “‘descente
aux enfers”; he had become “le ténébreux—le veuf—l’inconsolé,”” and
his memories had been shadowed by “‘le Soleil noir de la Mélancolie.”
But in 1849, standing still this side of “’ Achéron,” he gave in Le Mar-
quis de Fayolle the first intimations of his sentimental autobiography in a
discreetly objective, but tender, tone. In Gabrielle, he drew a light com-
posite portrait of Adrienne and Sylvie: “les deux moitiés d’un seul
amour,” of which “l’une était l’idéal sublime, l’autre la douce réalité.’”**
For if, at times, “l’apparition de Gabrielle avait quelque chose de
céleste,”” he observes, which recalls the image of Adrienne or Aurélie,
at other times, he pictures her as “‘la petite fille 4 demi paysanne,’’?® who
recalls Sylvie.

Having thus unfolded the love of Georges and Gabrielle, that is, his
own, as far as he did, why did he interrupt the tale precisely at its most
dramatic moment, with the lovers face to face with each other and their
destiny? The answer must be sought in what Gérard wrote to Alexan-
dre Dumas anent another semi-historical figure. “Il est, vous le savez,”
he explained, “‘certains conteurs qui ne peuvent inventer sans s’ identifier
aux personnages de leur imagination . . . C’est pourtant ce qui m’est
arrivé en entreprenant l’histoire d’un personnage qui a figuré, je crois
bien, vers I’époque de Louis XV,*° sous le pseudonyme de Brisacier,”
whom he pictures abandoned by the stage-star he loved. “Que faire
maintenant de ce héros abandonné de sa maitresse . . . Une fois per-
suadé que j’écrivais ma propre histoire, je me suis mis 4 traduire tous
mes réves, . . .*! Puis un rayon divin a lui dans mon enfer, . . . j’ai saisi
le fil d’Ariane. . . . ”’?

27. Aurélia. Paris, Le Divan, 1928, pp. 37-38.

28. Les Filles du feu, p. 201.

29. Le Marquis de Fayolle, pp. 121-122.

30. The correct reading should be “Louis XIV.”

31. Gérard had made of Brisacier the hero of his projected novel, Le Roman tragique, of
which he published only the first letter in 1844, and in which M. Pierre Audiat reads a pos-
sible hint for his break with Jenny Colon. Cf. his L’ Aurélia de Gérard de Nerval. Librairie
Ancienne Honoré Champion, Paris, 1926, pp. 89-92.

32. Les Filles du feu, pp. 7, 19-20.

306 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

But though he got hold of it, it is evident, from what he has revealed
to us, that the thread did not lead him entirely out of his inner labyrinth.
This circumstance explains much that remains obscure in the inner life
of Gérard. He was forever seeking a dramatic dénouement to his own
tragic destiny which puzzled him as much as it does us. Aurélie herself,
that is to say, Jenny Colon, chided him, at the time of her break with
him, about his tendency to superimpose his dreams on reality: ““Vous ne
m’aimez pas!” she told him. “‘Vous attendez que je vous dise: La comé-
dienne est la méme que la religieuse; vous cherchez un drame, voila tout,
et le dénodment vous échappe. Allez, je ne vous crois plus!’’*

That dénouement was to elude him to the very end. Two days before
his suicide, on January 24, 1855, Alfred Delvau declares: “Ce qui le
préoccupait surtout, c’était son roman commencé,* qu’il ne savait com-
ment terminer: ‘Je suis désolé,’ disait-il; ‘me voila aventuré dans une
idée ou je me perds; je passe des heures entiéres 4 me retrouver. . . .”’”*

In Le Marquis de Fayolle, also, Gérard had identified his emotional life
with that of Georges abandoned by his idol, as well as with its earlier
idyllic episodes. But in 1849, the outcome of the tragedy it had involved
him in was still beyond his ken; he could not weave it out of whole
cloth, because to him “‘inventer, au fond, c’est se ressouvenir.’”** He
could write down only what he had lived through and could recollect.
And so he broke off the thread of the historical drama to which he had
tied his own secret tale. He was still looking for “‘le fil d’Ariane.” But
as he probed deeper into his memories, he drew closer to the core of his
inner existence. In 1853, he revealed himself more candidly in Sylvie;
and two seasons later he laid bare his soul in Aurélia, his literary testa-
ment. But though his writings drew the veil aside, and let us peer into
him, his hand shook and dropped the pen before he could write finis.

The real dénouement, the catastrophe, was to happen in the rue de la
Vieille-Lanterne, on the morning of January 26, 1855, and he could only
be the actor in it, and not its chronicler. And so, psychologically as well
as symbolically, in Gérard, as perhaps in no other writer, his life and
works complement each other. He had to live the first before he could
write the latter. The story of Georges and Gabrielle in Le Marquis de
Fayolle is no exception. It remained unfinished in its time and place be-
cause his own drama—of which it was an image—was still incomplete.
And he left us taking the last word of his mystery with him.

The College of the City of New York S. A. Ruopes

33. Ibid., p. 200.

34. This refers to Aurélia.

35. Gérard de Nerval. Librairie de Mme Bachelin-Deflorenne, Paris, 1865, pp. 134-135.
36. Les Filles du feu, p. 8

THREE SPANISH-PORTUGUESE
ETYMOLOGIES

1. Spanish-Portuguese PENDENCIA “quarrel”

THAT SPANISH pendencia goes back to pender has never been questioned:
the Diccionario de autoridades endorsed this theory two centuries ago,' and
its latest descendent, the sixteenth edition of the Diccionario de la Aca-
demia Espanola (1936) still upholds it. A pun of Géngora proves beyond
doubt that this association was actually familiar to the writers of the
Golden Age.? And yet scrupulous scrutiny shows that the seemingly
transparent case of pendencia is intricate in more than one respect.

Pendencia is known to have developed four connotations altogether:
(1) “quarrel’’; (2) “quality of that which is undecided”; (3) “suspen-
sion of a suit”; (4) “ruffian.” Of these the last, recorded since the seven-
teenth century,’ is restricted to the Jengua de germania and clearly re-
flects an accessory development. The second and third meanings seem to
represent just two shadings of one fundamental signification, according
as the word is used strictly as a forensic term or in a broader sense; the
figurative use appears obsolete. The first meaning is by all odds the most
original and the most difficult to account for. Among the derivatives of
the word, the verb pendenciar, the adjective pendenciero, and the facetious
diminutive pendenzuela deserve mention.‘

In Portuguese, pendéncia is likewise encountered, again with the two
basic meanings of “‘that which is undecided” and “quarrel.” In this lat-
ter sense, dictionaries apprise us, a derivative with a more colorful end-

1. There is a somewhat cryptical allusion to this theory in Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua

castellana, s. v.: “‘Pendencia-la contienda o quistion, a pendendo, porque cada uno desea sobrepujar su
contrario y estarle encima.”
2. B. Alemany y Selfa, Vocabulario de las obras de Don Luis de Géngora y Argote, Madrid,
1930, quotes from the critical edition by Foulché-Delbosc:
Trae,
Alfileres que le prendan
Lo que pendiendo de atras
Nos hace su pendencia
Sentir no bien i veer mal.
3. See Diccionario de autoridades and Juan Hidalgo, Romances de germanta de varios autores,
con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c., Madrid, 1779, p. 188 (first print 1609).
4. Another derivative was pendencioso, illustrated in the dictionary of Pagés (1v, 329b) with
a quotation from F. de Rojas: “Son enemigos hombres pendenciosos, amigos de rencillas, acuchi-
lladizos, matantes, maquinadores de traiciones.”” No less eloquent is Cervantes, see Comedias y
entremeses, ed. R. Schevill y A. Bonilla, Madrid, 1915-1918, 1v, 14: “Andays siempre rostri-
tuerta, enojada, zelosa, pensativa, manirrota, dormilona, perezosa, pendenciera, grunidora.” The
Diccionario de autoridades supplies additional material on pendenciero from Luis Mufioz, Vida de
Fray Bartolomé de los M Grtires, and quotes pendencia from J. de Acosta, Historia natural y moral
de las Indias (1590) and Juan de Palafox, Conquista de la China.

308 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

ing, pendenga, is employed in Brazil. The use of the verb pendenciar is
also known in Portuguese.

In classical Spanish, pendencia refers to a dispute, brawl, or row among
men and women alike, frequently between husband and wife, involving
only two or numerous persons, limited to altercation or including acts
of violence, usually breaking out as a sequel to offending remarks moti-
vated by hatred, envy, jealousy, or ill humor; vociferation and gesticu-
lation are frequent adjuncts of the argument. Any implicit hint at the
length of the argument, as in French plaidoierie, any intimation of undue
protraction or dilatory treatment as could conceivably be deduced from
the forensic use of the word and lend itself to ludicrous interpretation,
are normally beyond the range of meanings of pendencia. The word un-
der study appears in a variety of styles: it was abundantly represented
in the Don Quixote® and the Comedias y entremeses of Cervantes,® yet it
was not out of place in the sophisticated poems of Géngora.?

Significant is the late appearance of pendencia in literature: there does
not seem to be any record of its existence before the second half of the
fifteenth century.® It is absent from the lexicon of the medieval fueros,
nor is it encountered in Alphonsine prose (including Las siete partidas and
Opzsculos legales), nor in works like Libro de buen amor, Rimado de
palacio, and Corbacho, whose content would plainly have justified its use.
The passages in which it occurs first are therefore valuable enough to be
quoted in full; they are taken from Frey ffigo de Mendoza: ®

La virginidad no tura
en la muger que procura
pendencias con los varones;

Resgebir guantes, manillas,
mill cosyllas

de Sevilla y de Valencia
muestran nos de tal pendencia
esperiencia;

from (the lyrical poet) Guevara:'°

Que lastimero bevir,
que parto sin desviarme

5. See J. Cejador y Frauca, La lengua de Cervantes, Madrid, 1906, 11, 840b.

6. Some characteristic passages are found in the edition by R. Schevill and A. Bonilla, Ma-
drid, 1915-1918: 1, 545 1, 973 1, 1923 I, 193; I, 24; I, 393 11, 164; IV, 5; IV, 18; IV, 19; IV, 24;
IV, 30; IV, 75; IV, 162.

7. For two additional examples, see B. Alemany y Selfa, op. cit., s.v.

8. It was found absent from over fifty of the most currently read Old Spanish texts.

9. Cancionero castellano del siglo XV, ed. F. Foulché-Delbosc, Madrid, 1912-1915, 1, 3b,
76a.

10. Ibid., u, 490b.

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 309

de quien no puedo partir

por bien que quiero apartarme.
Que tan danosa licencia

que pido triste llorando!

Que tan travada pendencia!

from Diego de San Pedro:™

Quando besé las manos 4 Laureola pasaron cosas mucho de notar . . . ; al uno
le sobraua turbacion, al otro le faltaua color; ni él sabie qué dezir, ni ella qué
responder, que tanta fuerca tienen las pasiones enamoradas que siempre traen
el seso y discrecion debaxo de su vandera ... . Y puesto que de las mudangas
dellos ninguno touiese noticia por la poca sospecha que de su pendencia auia,
Persio, hijo del sefior de Gauia, miré en ellas;

from Mosén Diego de Valera:”

Asi en la pendencia destos do Reyes se perdian é destruian estos Reynos é
no ménos los Grandes dellos;

E] Comendador Mayor, mostrando tener grande enojo de las cosas 4 él dichas,
se volvié en su tierra, quedando Jas cosas en pendencia entre el Duque y el
Marqués;

from Diego Enriquez del Castillo:"

Después que el Rey fué llegado 4 Segovia, donde mds pensaba reposar, el
Marqués de Villena publicaba que los Condes de Plasencia y de Alva eran
sus enemigos, y que siendo aquellos contra él, no podia estar seguro en la
Corte ... El Rey creyendo ser asi, envid sus mensageros a los Condes.
Durante aquella falsa pendencia, el mensagero que avia enviado 4 Roma fué
tan solicito, que despaché la provisién de Maestradgo de Sanctiago para
el Conde de Ledesma;

Estando asi este negocio en pendencia, subcedié que el Marqués de Villena . . .
pusose en tratos con algunos dellos;

and from Lépez de Villalobos’ Summario de la medicina (1498) :"4

Seteno, le pongan en muy gran pendencia
De tratos de suma y en mucho cuidado;
Octauo, le aparten con gran diligencia
Daquella setora . . .

That pendencia at that time was as yet an uncommon word, follows
from the failure of Nebrija to list it in his dictionary. Yet even the few

11. Diego de San Pedro, Cércel de amor, Nueva biblioteca de autores espafioles, vu, 1ob.

12. Mosén Diego de Valera, Memorial de diversas hazanas, Biblioteca de autores espafioles,
LXX, 35a, 66b.

13. Diego Enriquez del Castillo, Cronica del Rey Don Enrique Quarto, Biblioteca de autores
espafioles, Lxx, 135a, 2214.

14. F. Lépez de Villalobos, A/gunas Obras, Madrid, Sociedad de bibliéfilos espaiioles,
1886, p. 324.

310 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

examples discovered in pre-classical Spanish suffice to show that the
word possessed one meaning which it subsequently lost and which is not
recorded in any dictionary: that of “distress,” “predicament,” “‘emer-
gency,” “state of alarm.” Indeed, it is to a “false alarm,” not to a “false
quarrel’”’ (which would yield little sense, if any) that the author of the
Crénica del Rey Don Enrique IV seems to allude, it is his “predicament”
that Guevara bewails, the preacher Ifigo de Mendoza scourges women
for their attempts to extricate themselves from a “difficult situation”’; in
Cércel de amor, reference is manifestly made to the “confusion,” “‘per-
plexity,” “distress”’ of two persons in desperate love with each other,
not to any “‘arguments”’ between them. It will be good to bear in mind
this archaic function in retracing the origin of the word.

Is pendencia a Latinism or was it coined in the vernacular? All words
in -encia that are original creations of Spanish, such as agudencia, menu-
dencia, tristencia, aborrencia, atrevencia, bienquerencia, captenencia, enadiencia,
estrevencia, are abundantly represented in texts of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. By way of contrast, such derivatives as poured
into Spanish by the year 1450 (adherencia, adolecencia, advertencia,
afluencia, antecedencia, beneficiencia, competencia, confidencia, consecuencia,
resistencia, and the like) are known as belated learned imitations of Latin
patterns. On the basis of this criterion, pendencia would have to be classi-
fied as a Latinism; the existence of the manifestly erudite juridical term
litispendencia seems to lend support to this assumption.

Oddly enough, however, attempts to localize pendentia within the
boundaries of Latin have not proven wholly satisfactory. Standard dic-
tionaries of Classical Latin fail to mention it,’® nor is it encountered in
the now copiously exploited glosses’ or in special juridical lexicons.”
True, pendentia has left vestiges in medieval Latin, but hardly in any
pertinent connotation: it is recorded as standing for “garland, fes-
toon,’’!’ for “‘schedule,”’?* for “ringlet, curl,”®° also in an obscene sense

15. For instance, Forcellini-De Vit, Georges, Benoist-Goelzer.

16. Specifically those published by the British Academy, by G. Gétz, M. Roques, and
es pm from H. E. Dirksen, Manuale latinitatis fontium iuris civilis Romanorum, Berlin,
1837, several reference works of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have
been consulted, such as John Cowell, John Rastell, Th. Blount, J. Giles, and above all Gil de
Castején, Alphabetum iuridicum (1720).

18. Du Cange, Glossarium, vi, 255: “quae ad tumulos sanctorum suspendebantur.”

19. J. H. Baxter and C. Johnson, Mediaeval Latin Word List, London, Oxford University
Press, 1934, list pendentia “schedule” as of 1391. Compare Levy, Provenzalisches Supplement-
wérterbuch, v1, 206: penden “Verzeichnis der noch nicht erledigten Geschafte.” In this con-
notation, as in others, it would seem that the substantivated participle has paved the way for
the new derivative.

20. Antal Bartal, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis regni Hungariae, Budapest, 1901,
481: pendentia, -ae “cirri, fimbriae.”

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 311

as a substitute for pudenda. Of course, the verb pendére is well known
to have signified “to be interrupted”: pendent opera interrupta (Vergil),
also “to be doubtful”: animus tibi pendet (Cicero); obscura spé et caecd
expectatione pendére (Livy); pendet belli fortuna (Ovid), and the partici-
ple pendens was currently used in Roman jurisprudence, ¢.g., in the
maxim pendente lite nihil innovétur® and in combinations like appel-
latioéne pendente, causa pendente, cognitidne pendente, indicid pendente,
rérum vindicatione pendente, cf. also in pendenti esse “incertum esse”’
(Du Cange, v1, 255b), illustrating the use of the substantivated adjec-
tive well in advance of the derivation of a genuine noun in -entia; in Old
French, pendible and pendable also signified “doubtful.”** Morphologi-
cally, pendentia “suspense’”’ could at any moment be produced from
pendente, but the actual process of derivation seems to have occurred in
Neo-Latin,”* so late indeed that it may have been expedited by the pre-
vious coinage of the word in any of the spoken languages, even as
French pendant, Provengal penden(t) “during,” itself an outgrowth of
clerical Latin, and Romance pendente “‘ear-ring’’ were secondarily ab-
sorbed by medieval Latin (see Du Cange, vi, 255b, c). Be that as it
may, the late appearance of pendentia as a juridical term in Latin does not
facilitate the assumption that Spanish pendencia is a pure cultismo, since
its lively semantic shifts (> “distress,” “quarrel’’) would normally

presuppose a development over a considerable period of time.

In the vernacular, traces of *pendentia are detected outside of Spain,
particularly on Italian soil.2* Whether pendance “slope,” recorded once
by Godefroy (v1, 75c), was really native to Old French, is a matter of
controversy; we know positively, from such comprehensive dictionaries
as Raynouard (1v, 492-501), Levy (v1, 206), and Aguilé (v1, 96), that
it was absent from Old Provengal and Old Catalan.”’ But in Italy and

21. Baxter-Johnson, op. cit., quote a neuter plural pendentia used in this sense as of 1221.

22. See A. M. Burrill, A Law Dictionary and Glossary, 2nd ed., 1859-1860, s.v.

23. For quotations, see H.G. Heumann, Handlexicon zu den Quellen des rimischen Rechts,
Jena, 1891, s.v.

24. M. Roques, Recueil général des lexiques francais du moyen-dge, Paris, 1936-1938, 1, 425;
Il, 305.

25. Several examples are offered by A. Bartal, op. cit., s.v.

26. All these varieties of pendentia go back to pendére, none is traceable to pendére, which
had been largely replaced in Imperial Latin by pensdre, see Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire
étymologique, 2nd ed., Paris, 1939, s.v.

27. However, pendéncia has penetrated into Modern Catalan due to the expansion of Cas-
tilian usage, and so have most of its cognates. Some dictionaries mention also a form pen-
denca. From the existence of this form, no conclusions as to the chronology of the word can be
drawn, since -éncia and -enga are used alternately in the dialectal varieties of Catalan, in con-
trast to Portuguese-Galician, where -enga distinctly represents the older stratum and has evi-
dential value for the dating of the derivation.

312 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

the adjacent islands, the situation was different. Pendenza rivals with
pendio <*pendivu “‘slope,” “‘precipice,”’ both in the standard language
and in a multitude of dialects, for instance, those of Sardinia, Bergamo,
Piedmont, and Bologna.?* Very frequently found are the related shad-
ings of “‘declivity,” “‘slant,” either specifically in reference to the pitch
of a roof, or generally speaking, also in figurative use (“‘propensity,”
“leaning,” “‘bias’’); this meaning seems to have been imitated in Eng-
lish, due to the influence exercised by Italian architecture.2® As a com-
mercial term, pendenza stands in Tuscany and elsewhere for “unbal-
anced debt.’’ The meanings “suspense,” “indecision,” occasionally also
“dispute,” “controversy” (but hardly ever “brawl’’) are not unknown
to the standard language and are found in dialects likewise at places
scattered over a considerable area, including Sicily, Naples, Milan, and
Bologna. However, this fact cannot be constructed as cogent proof of
the “pan-Romanic” character of *pendentia “dispute.” Pendenza as a
synonym for “indecisione,” “‘controversia” is not recorded by Tom-
maseo-Bellini (111, 875c) prior to Francesco Redi (1626-1698), a writer,
incidentally, who was exceptionally well versed in Spanish literature.
The Italian word could well have arisen in imitation of the Spanish pat-
tern, because, in the nature of things, it must have been currently used
by the Spanish soldatesca stationed in various parts of Italy.*° How-

ever, since pendenza signifies “‘controversy”’ rather than “brawl,” it may
be simpler to regard it as absorbed from Neo-Latin juridical sources. In
any event, pendenza “dispute”’ is, in contrast to pendenza “slope,” not an
organic outgrowth in the vernacular of a Vulgar Latin *pendentia, all

28. The following dialectal word-lists have been consulted: G. Spano, Vocabolario italiano-
sardo e sardo-italiano, Cagliari, 1852; A. Tiraboschi, Vocabolario dei dialetti bergamaschi, Ber-
gamo, 1873; V. di Sant’Albino, Gran dizionario piemontese-italiano, Torino, 1859; C. Coro-
nedi Berti, Vocabolario bolognese-italiano, Bologna, 1869-1872; C. Pariset, Vocabolario parmi-
giano-italiano, 1892; A. Traina, Nuovo vocabolario siciliano-italiano, Palermo, 1868; G. Ceraso,
Vocabolario napoletano-italiano, 3rd ed., 1910; F. Angiolini, Vocabolario milanese-italiano, 1897.

29. The New English Dictionary (vu, 637a) quotes pendence “‘downehanging”’ (Florio), as
of 1624; pendency, also spelled pendancie “the state or condition of being undecided, or await-
ing settlement,”’ as of 1637, 1726, 1848; pendency “pendent position,” “droopingness,”’ as of
1770, 1831.

30. Interesting data on the infiltration of Spanish words into Italian through the agency of
the court of Naples and the armies quartered in the areas under Spanish control are contained
in Enrico Zaccaria, L’ elemento iberico nella lingua italiana, Bologna, 1927. Borrowings from the
legal and administrative nomenclature that would fall under the same category as pendenza
(omitted by Zaccaria) include: abonare, allistare, amparare, appoderarsi, arrendare, assentare,
attrassare, azienda, cavedale, competenza, dependenza, disimpegnare, disterrare, finca, giunta,
maiorasco. Closest to the semantic field of “dispute,” “brawl” are perhaps: affronto, aggravio,
buglia, baraonda; alborottarsi, ammotinarsi; capitano, fanfarone. Redi is well known for his unre-
strained use of Hispanisms: acciacco<achaque, acquarzente<aguardiente, alamari, alborotto,
aloscia, candiero, cantimplora, cascarilla, lindura, and others. This tends to show that there is
every reason to suspect that Italian pendenza “dispute,” “‘suspense’’ (which took root pre-
cisely in the dialects of Lombardy, Naples, and Sicily, i.e., those most exposed to Spanish in-
fluences) may be patterned directly after Spanish pendencia.

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 313

the less so as, on the evidence of Sardinian, Old Provencal, and Old
Catalan material, there was no “bridge’’ between the two peninsular
areas.

Let us summarize the facts so far established: (1) pendencia appears in
Spanish after 1450; (2) its original meanings are: “‘distress,”’ ‘“sus-
pense,” “dispute”; (3) no such word as *pendentia is recorded in an-
cient Latin; (4) *pendentia “slope,” “precipice’’ did arise in the variety
of Vulgar Latin spoken on Italian soil; (5) pendentia occurs sporadically
and in a variety of meanings in medieval Latin; only at a late date did it
come to mean “suspense’’; (6) no outgrowth of *pendentia “suspense,”
“controversy” is encountered in Old French, Old Provencal, Old Cata-
lan, Sardinian; vestiges of these connotations found in Italian are belated
and traceable to Neo-Latin (or Spanish) influence; the state of affairs in
Modern Portuguese is the same as in Modern Spanish, only in these two
languages (and ultimately in Catalan) has the meaning “brawl!” devel-
oped; (7) while a connection between the two basic connotations of
pendencia in Ibero-Romance: “suspension of a suit”’ and “‘dispute”’ can be
construed (through association with lis by way of Jitis pendentia), the
absence of intermediary shadings such as “dilatory treatment,” “‘end-
less argumentation” causes surprise, while the obsolete meaning of
“distress”’ is not at all reconcilable with the rest of the functions of the
word. It would seem that so many inconsistencies could only be elmin-
inated through the discovery of a missing link, which might be found in
the one language which we have not yet surveyed and whose influence
on Spanish becomes ever more apparent: Old Portuguese.

In Old Portuguese, there existed a word pendenga, an outgrowth of
poenitentia, used as late as the Cancioneiro Geral,*' Garcia de Resende’s
Cronica do Rei Dom Joao II, and Gil Vicente,* yet no longer found in Sa
de Miranda** and apparently forgotten by the lexicographers of the
post-classical period.** This word pendenga “‘penitence,” “penance” was
quite current in the medieval literature, which was predominantly ec-
clesiastic—in Portugal more so perhaps than in the neighboring coun-

31. Cancioneiro Geral de Garcia de Resende, ed. Dr. A. J. Gongalvez Guimariis, Coimbra’
1910-1917. In the following cases pendenga unmistakably connotes “repentance,” “‘penance”’:
I, 1153 1, 137; U, 196; Il, 11; IV, 72; IV, 214; V, 226; V, 227; V, 228; v, 241; noteworthy are
such combinations as sair em pendenca, fazer pendenca de (um pecado), fazer alguma cousa por
pendenga, dar a pendenca, requerer a pendenga, comprir a pendenca. The two cases ul, 185 and
Iv, 381 are less transparent; in view of the epigrammatic character of the poems, they may
involve intended puns.

32. For an example, see the dictionary of D. Vieira s.v.

33. In Auto da historia de Deus, |. 275; see Gil Vicente, Obras completas, Coimbra, 1933-,
1, 378.

34. Francisco de S4 de Miranda, Poesias, ed. C. Michaélis de Vasconcellos, Halle, 1885,
Pp. 200, 477.

35. R. Bluteau, Vocabulario portuguez ¢ latino, Lisbon, 1720, vi, 387ab.

314 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

tries. It is recorded in the Grail Fragment,*® in the Galician Cronica
troyana,*" in distinctly hagiographic writings like the Life of Euphrosyne**
and the Life of Mary the Egyptian, in the short Treatise of Devotion,*°
in the Rule of Benedict,’ the Codex Alcobacensis 200, the Life of Barlaam
and Josaphat,* the chronicles of the outstanding annalist of the early fif-
teenth century, Fernao Lopes,‘ in a number of didactic, educational, de-
votional, and apologetic books such as the Castelo perigoso,*® Livro da
corte imperial,*® Livro da virtuosa bemfeitoria.*’ Side by side with the
vernacular word pendencga was used its learned counterpart penitencia,*®
also spelled penetencia.*® The phonological development poenitentia > pé-
edenga > pendenga has been discussed by J. J. Nunes.*°

Apart from this variety of pendenga, there existed a not quite so well
known homonym connoting “‘fit of anger,” “quarrel,” “dispute,” “in-
trigue.” Instances of this use are quoted by the dictionaries from a ver-
sion of the Life of Euphrosyne* and Garcia de Resende’s Chronicle of
John the Second;® to those references may be added the following two
passages from the Cancioneiro Geral (1, 124 and 111, 191):

Mas os grytos e cramores Se faz na corte detenga,
que ouuy de meus cuydados, ou se torna a militar,

36. A Historia dos cavalleiros da mesa redonda e da demanda do Santo Graall, ed. Karl von
Reinhardstoettner, Berlin, 1887, pp. 22, 130, 135, 136.

37. Cronica troyana, ed. A. Martinez Salazar, La Corufia, 1900, glossary.

38. “Vida de Eufrosina,” ed. J. Cornu, Romania, x1 (1882), 360.

39. “Vida de Maria Egipcia,” ed. J. Cornu, Romania, x1 (1882), 373, 375-

40. ‘‘Traité de dévotion,” ed. J. Cornu, Romania, x1 (1882), 386, 387, 389.

41. John M. Burnam, An Old Portuguese Version of the Rule of Benedict, University of Cin-
cinnati Studies, 1911, p. 54.

42. Henry H. Carter, Paleographical Edition and Study of the Language of a Portion of Codex
Alcobacensis 200, Philadelphia, 1938, ff. 203r11, v5; 20469; 216v12.

43. A Portuguese Version of the Life of Barlaam and Josaphat, ed. Richard D. Abraham,
Philadelphia, 1938, ff. 21726; 25620; 27V9; 3161; 33623; 40r22.

44. Fernao Lopes, Primeira parte da Crénica de Dom Jodo I, ed. A. Braamcamp Freire, Lis-
bon, 1915, pp. 240, 280, 358; see also Introduction p. xlvi for a document of the year 1437.

45. See J. Leite de Vasconcellos, Textos arcaicos, 3rd ed., Lisbon, 1922, p. 49, l. 8.

46. O Livro da cérte imperial, ed. J. Pereira de Sampaio, Porto, 1910, pp. 136, 263, 266.

47. Infante Dom Pedro, Livro da virtuosa bemfeitoria, ed. J. Pereira de Sampaio, Porto,
1910, pp. 185, 244.

48. “Vida de S. Amaro,” ed. O. Klob, Romania, xxx (1901), 511; ““Cousas notéveis e mila-
gres de Santo Antonio de Lisboa,” ed. J. J. Nunes, Revista Lusitana, xv, 213, 220; ““Duas tradu-
des portuguesas do século XIV,” ed. P. d’ Azevedo, Revista Lusitana, xvu, 102; “Vida do Duque
Antioco,” ed. J. J. Nunes, Revista Lusitana, xix, 70; also, in previously quoted editions,
Demanda do Santo Graall, p. 77; Traité de dévotion, p. 387; Cronica troyana, glossary; Rule of
Benedict, pp. 14, 40, 55; Codex Alcobacensis 200, ff. 19563; 202V10; 203V1, 3, 4, 6. Penitencia
does not seem to occur in the Portuguese portion of the Cancioneiro Geral.

49. Codex Alcobacensis 200, f. 203v12.

50. See Revista Lusitana, xiv, 75.

51. See C. de Figueiredo, Novo dicionério da lingua portuguesa, 3rd ed., s.v.

52. See the dictionary of D. Vieira, 1v, 733¢-734a: Sobre o casamento da dita Infanta dona
Isabel ouve grandes requeirimentos, e muytas pendengas.

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 315

as pendengas ¢ ardores, se despacha algiia tenga,
os grandes brados e dores ou com dama traz pendengca.
que me vyam lastymados.

Is it practicable to retrace these two varieties of Old Portuguese pen-
denga to the same Latin source? Contrary to what one may be inclined to
contend at first sight, the two connotations “‘penance”’ and “dispute”’ are,
at bottom, not irreconcilable. It should be recalled that, genetically, poeni-
tentia, before becoming associated with poena, was a cognate of paene
“hardly,” i.e., “insufficiently”; the verb paeniteo or mé paenitet was, both
in Plautinian and in Ciceronian Latin, evocative of dissatisfaction, not of
contrition. True, in ecclesiastical Latin poenitentia could not help but
come into ever closer relationship with the semantic fields of “‘confes-
sion” and “atonement”; yet in the vernacular it continued to signify
“suffering,” “distress” as well, particularly where the correlated verb
survived in this connotation (as was the case in Roumanian) .* In Pro-
vencal troubadour lyrics, penedensa, as has been pointed out by E. Levy,**
frequently expressed “regret,”’ “anger,” “sorrow” —a mood resembling
anything but true compunction, as when a lover wishes to retract a
rashly given promise. This meaning must have survived into Old Portu-
guese, also, all the more so as the prevalent forms (ar) repender <*re-
poenitére, pendenca suggest transmission through the channels of the ver-

nacular.*® From “grief,” “annoyance,” “pain” there was but a short
step to “distress” on the one and to “dispute,” “quarrel” on the other
hand. At this stage of the development, the contamination with pendente
“suspended,” evocative of juridical procedures, may rightly. be sus-
pected to have come in. This contamination was greatly facilitated by
the fact that it was quite customary for the church authorities to com-

53. Tiktin’s etymology poenitére>pdndta has been accepted by REW, 3rd ed. The
morphological development of the word family did not go along the same lines in Church
Latin and in Vulgar Latin, although the two branches never ceased to influence each other.
Thus, on French soil *expoenitére was used in the vernacular to render the religious concept of
atonement (REW, 3053a; Godefroy, m, 520c—521b). In most dialects, *repoenitére (REW
7724) succeeded in replacing poenitére (REW 6630), and in Spanish and Portuguese, intensive
formations like arrepentirse, arrepender-se prevailed at the end of the Middle Ages. Italian
ripentaglio “danger’’ (REW 7724) is, like the Roumanian verb, an interesting survival of the
vernacular use unaffected by the ecclesiastical acceptation.

54. Provenzalisches Supplementwirterbuch, s.v.

55. The forms extant in Romance reveal a curious gradation of learnedness. Old French
peneance and pentir obviously do not belong to the same stratum, nor do Old Portuguese
pendenca and penitencia (which, in contrast to the assertion of A. Nascentes, Diciondrio
etimolégico, co-existed for centuries), nor Old Italian penetenza and pentimento (see Tomma-
seo-Bellini, 11, 893). Semi-learned peneance, penetenza served to express contrition exclusively,
and so did, of course, learned penitencia. Their vernacular counterparts in each language sig-
nified just “regret,” “grief,” a meaning which involved entirely different potentialities of de-
velopment. In Portuguese alone, these potentialities seem to have taken shape.

316 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

mute the original forms of penance into fines;** thus pendenga and
rependimento actually came to signify “payment of a penalty” and sug-
gested the atmosphere of a court.*”

Is the implicit assumption that Spanish pendencia was absorbed in the
fifteenth century from Portuguese-Galician not in harmony with what-
ever we know about the admiration professed by the Castilians of that
epoch for the achievements of their western neighbors in lyrical genres?
It is not irrelevant that similar lexical influences have been recorded.**
Is it, under these circumstances, improbable that Spanish authors of the
fifteenth century should have been eager to introduce a poetical, sug-
gestive term for “pain,” “distress,” “predicament,” “love quarrel”
which they found abundantly used in Portuguese? As for the change of
-en¢a into -encia, it does not cause any surprise: those bilingual writers
were well aware of the relationship between Spanish bienquerencia,
presencia and Portuguese bemquerenca, presenga; as a matter of fact, hy-
percorrection was more frequent with them than disregard of pholonogi-
cal differences.*®

Ironically enough, some decades after the traditional pendenga had
been obliterated in Portuguese (by the year 1550), this language experi-
enced a notable influx of Castilianisms due to the political and cultural
supremacy of Spain; among the words absorbed at that moment was
pendencia. And while the new prestige of Spain was contributing to the
spread of pendencia over Catalonia, Lombardy, and the Kingdom of
Naples, it was in reality a word of Portuguese ancestry that was profit-
ing from the success of Spanish weapons and policies.

2. Old Spanish PRIMENGIAS, PREMIENGIAS “‘first-fruits”

Old Spanish primengias, premiengias has been identified by C. Carroll
Marden and Professor Menéndez Pidal with primigias “‘first-fruits,”
but a satisfactory explanation of the uncommon derivative remains to
be given. The word occurs in the Old Leonese poem Elena y Maria:®°

56. On this redemptio poenitentiae (as contrasted by the complete remission), some material
will be found in Du Cange, v1, 383a—389c.

57. See Fr. Joaquim de Santa Rosa de Viterbo, Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em
Portugal antigamente se usaram, Lisbon, 1798, 1, 208b, 212a. The author quotes a fifteenth-
century document from Viana: “Em a qual carta se continha que eu vos dera os dinheiros das peen-
dencas desse logar pera ajuda de hum relogio.”’ Ulustration is provided also for repeendimento
“satisfaction,” “payment,” “recompense,” as of the year 1348, see 11, 285a; and for pendencal
“‘penitential,”’ “confessor,” see 1, 208ab, 211b-—212a (compare Cancioneiro Geral, 1, 246).

58. Thus solidad is recorded in Spanish as early as the thirteenth century (Flores de Filo-
sofia); yet soledad, solidumbre (Quatro Dotores), soledumbre (Villena) are known to have been
influenced in their semantic development by Old Portuguese sotdade.

59. This is particularly true of Portuguese poets composing their works in Spanish. In the
Cancioneiro Geral, mistakes of this kind are a legion, e.g. empriende (1, 130), templano (1, 131),
tormiento (1, 142, 143, 195, 380, 390, 315), compuerte (1, 196).

60. See the edition by R. Menéndez Pidal in Revista de Filologia Espafiola, 1 (1914).

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 317

Diz matines e misa
e sierve bien su eglisa,

185 ¢ gana diezmos e primencias
sin pecado e sin engano;
e quando quier comer e bever
e ha vida d{e] rrico omne.

Furthermore, it is encountered in the Poema de Fernan Gonzalez," stanza
38:

Estavan las yglesias todas vyen ordenadas,

De olio (e de ageyte) e de cera estavan (vien) avastadas,

Los diezmos e (las) premiencias /eal m{ilente eran dadas,

E eran todas las gentes en la fe (vyen) arraygadas.

Then, primencia must have stood in the archaic Disputa del alma y el
cuerpo (written before 1201), although in the version actually pre-
served primicia has been transmitted—unquestionably an interpolation
(note that in each line the word preceding the caesura rhymes invari-
ably with the last word) : ®

Tot siempre t’maldizre, ca por ti penare,

que nunca fecist cosa que semeias fer[mo]|sa,

ni de nog ni de dia de lo que io queria;

nunca fost a altar por j buena oferda dar

ni diez [mo] ni primicia ni buena penitenci{a};
ni fecist oracion nunca de corazo[n).

Probably the last trace left by primengia, in the first half of the fifteenth
century, is its frequent occurrence, both in the body of the text and in
the subjoined glosses, in the Rabbinical Bible.™

Primicia is, of course, an erudite adoption of primitia,** comparable
to Old Spanish duricia, tristicia, malicia, avaricia beside dureza, tristeza,
maleza, avareza, peculiar to the vernacular stratum. Primengia may, at
first sight, appear attributable to a suffix-change, yet immediately a
doubt arises: the two elements -icia and -encia were so similar in func-
tion, frequency, and expressiveness that no advantage whatsoever

61. See the edition by C. Carroll Marden, Baltimore, 1904.

62. Disputa del alma y el cuerpo y Auto de los reyes magos, ed. R. Menéndez Pidal, separate
from Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, Madrid, 1900.

63. Biblia de la Casa de Alba, traducida del hebreo al castellano por Rabi Mose de Guadalfajara,
ed A. Paz y Melia, Madrid, 1920-1922; Jeremiah ii; Ezequiel lxiv, xlv, xlvii, xlviii; Mal-
eachi iii; glosses: 1, 88b, 197a, 453a, 455b.

64. In Latin, primitiae was used for “first-fruits” by the classical writers and by Jerome;
for “first produce of the mine,” by Tacitus; for “first shoots,” by Columella; and very fre-
quently in a figurative sense: primitiae iuuenis “the young man’s first unhappy essays” (Ver-
gil); primitiae amédrum, lacrimaérum (Statius) ; primitiae dormientium “the first rise from the
dead” (Vulgate). REW 6751 quotes Valaisan frimise “cheese prepared for the priest on the
first day after the trip to the Alps.”

318 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

could be derived by their mutual substitution. It is deemed preferable,
therefore, to explain primencia as a contamination of primitia by
*prementia.

There is one important historical piece of evidence that militates in
favor of this theory. The collection of the first-fruits, obligatory under
the laws of the Old Testament, has given way, in the first millennium
of the Christian era, to a more or less voluntary annual contribution
of the peasantry to the maintenance of their local parishes and priests
(the contribution ranged from one-sixtieth to one-fortieth of the har-
vest). Special provisions of the Decretum Gratiani (1127-1157) prove,
however, that the state of affairs changed notably toward the beginning
of the twelfth century, as the enforced collection of first-fruits became
customary. No wonder that the reaction of the people to this unheard-
of application of coercion was bitter resentment. To this feeling the
rural population of Spain gave free vent by associating primicia with
premer;*® primengia thus became suggestive of “‘extorted first-fruits.”

The form premiengia commands particular interest.-If *preméntia
“pressure’’ was extant in Ibero-Romance (that this was highly probable,
is borne out by Portuguese preméncia), then its original outgrowth in
Castilian must have been *premienga, *primienga (cf. seméntia “‘seed”’
>Old Spanish semienca, simienga). At a later date (shortly after 1200,
on the evidence of available documents), the learned suffix -encia
began to supersede preliterary -ienga in the central dialects.** In pre-
miencia as found in the Poema de Fernan Gonzalez, a curious transitional
form between -ienga and -engia seems to have petrified.

The last missing link in the documentation is supplied by the forms
premencia beside primengia, signifying “‘first-fruits” and found in the
Fuero de Salamanca of the thirteenth century: MS A shows premencia,
MS B primengia beside premengia, MS C primencia (see Federico de
Onis—A. Castro, Fueros leoneses, Madrid, 1916, page 187, lines 2, 4, 5,
14, 18, 19, 20). The existence of the form premencgia proves that pri-
mencia cannot be looked upon as a mere variant of primicia, produced
by suffix-change.

To sum up, the available evidence seems to permit the reconstruction

65. Prémére (REW 6738), originally preserved in all major Romance dialects except Rou-
manian, subsequently yielded to outgrowths of préssére (REW 6741) in French and Italian,
and to apretar in Castilian; it was perpetuated in the more conservative branches such as Sar-
dinian and Galician-Portuguese. Of greater importance than the prém- was the préss- stem
(REW 6742-6745), used for the derivation of a variety of tools serving to press or to squeeze.

66. Abenienca, convenienca, avinenga, convenenga, escogenca, erenca, pertinenca, sentenca have
been discovered in documents issued before 1220, see Victor R. B. Oelschlager, A Medieval
Spanish Word-List, Madison, The University of Wisconsin Press, [1940]. These and other
relics of -entia will be discussed in a forthcoming monograph, to appear in the University of
California Publications in Linguistics.

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 319

of the following sequence of events: (1) In the Latinity of the north-
western corner of the Iberian Peninsula including Asturias, *prementia
‘pressure’ seems to have arisen, perpetuated by Portuguese preméncia
possibly replacing older -enga. (2) The reflexes of *prementia in pre-
literary Leonese and Castilian must have been *premienca and, by
metaphony, *premienga. (3) Around the year 1200, -ienca yielded to
-encia in the central dialects; this accounts for the recorded primencia,
while premiencia is a transitional form. (4) At this juncture, a contami-
nation with primicia “‘first-fruits’” became possible, because of the prim-
stem that the two derivatives had in common and because of the seman-
tic association provided by the enforced collection of first-fruits, in-
troduced in the twelfth century. (5) Primengia was eliminated in
Alphonsine Spanish in favor of the Latinism primigia, but survived in
the conservative parlance of Spanish Jews, less open to the influence
of the Church, as late as the fifteenth century.

3. Old Spanish FiMENGIA, FEMENGIA, HEMENGIA,
Old Portuguese FEMENGA ““vehemence”

Huber was undoubtedly correct in recognizing Old Portuguese
femenca as a contamination of vehementia>*vemenga by *ferventia
>fervenga. He offered an illuminating explanation of some of the
circumstances attendent upon the merger of the two stems. However,
he must be reproached with giving some measure of credence to an
alternate theory proposed half a century ago by Meyer-Liibke for
Old Spanish femengia, said to have evolved through aphaeresis from
[ve] hementia, with f- representing aspirated h.*’ This hypothesis,
uncritically accepted by Lanchetas,® yet only halfheartedly endorsed
by Allen,® is entirely untenable in the light of recent research: Menén-
dez Pidal has refuted the view of the Viennese school on the nature of
the transmutation f->h-,”° and, on the other hand, the supposedly
“aspirated” h in vehementia is now believed by leading Latinists like
Ernout never to have been pronounced.” The origin of the word may

67. See W. Meyer-Liibke, Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen, Lautlehre, Leipzig, 1890,
PP. 354-355 and Joseph Huber, Altportugiesisches Elementarbuch, Heidelberg, 1933, PP- 32,
91. Huber’s suggestion to regard femenca as possibly borrowed from Castilian is less felici-
tous. E. B. Williams, From Latin to Portuguese, Philadelphia, 1938, p. 59, mentions Huber’s
opinion without supporting or repudiating it. A. Zauner, Altspanisches Elementarbuch, 2nd ed.,
Heidelberg, 1921, thinks of a contamination of vehementia by fuerga, A. Steiger, BRAE, x, 182
suggests the possibility of an attraction by fiero or fementido.

68. R. Lanchetas, Gramética y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid, 1900,
P- 357

69. Lv ancienne version espagnole de Kalila et Digna, ed. C. G. Allen, Macon, 1906, glossary,
8. V.

70. R. Menéndez Pidal, Origenes del espafiol, 2nd ed., Madrid, 1929, pp. 219-240.

71. See Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, 2nd ed., Paris, 1939,
6. ¥.

320 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

thus be considered as clarified; yet its semantic development is interest-
ing enough to warrant a brief discussion.

In Latin, véhéméntia sprang up rather late—it is absent, for instance,
from Cicero, who resorted constantly to the correlated adjective and
adverb. This post-Augustan derivative is found in Tacitus and par-
ticularly in Pliny, who used it both as “‘passionateness” and “pungency”
in reference to flavor or odor; the second meaning is not known to have
persisted in Romance. Véhémeéns represents an alteration of vé-méns
(comparable to vé-cdrs “sick of heart” and a score of similar com-
pounds containing an archaic vé- element expressive of privation or
depreciation); the change, orthographic and semantic rather than
phonetic, has been ascribed to association with the véhére family. The
word, originally suggestive of “violence,” “stirring” and identified
in glosses with ogodpérns, thus became implicated in relations with a
root connoting “‘motion” because of the inherent affinity between in-
ward unrest and outward dislocation.

As for fervére and fervére, they originally conveyed the idea of
ebullience and later extended their meaning to express “scorching,”
“foaming,” and “tossing”; fervéns, however, did not partake of all
phases of this development; it was confined to the connotation “‘boil-
ing,” “‘hot,”’ literally, and “fervent,” figuratively.

The genesis on Portuguese soil of *ferventia beside fervor does not
stand out as an isolated phenomenon; compare Asturian albencia,
clarencia as against Latin albor, cléror. It is a fair guess that the original
area of *ferventia reached all the way down to Santander, where the
Castilian dialect was to spring up, and that the contamination of vémen-
tia by *ferventia took place all over this zone. Fervir and fervor are
encountered in the Spanish literature from the very outset.

Apart from femengia, some of the oldest writers like Berceo and the
anonymous author of the polymetric Historia troyana used fimencia;™
there was a similar waverin; between rependengia and repindengia.”
The variants with -i- are phonologically understandable only on the
assumption that the preliterary forms had been *fimienga, *repindienga
(in which the yod of the suffix exerted its influence on the stem vowel),
with learned -engia later superseding its vernacular doublet -ienga.
As for the hemengia variety, it occurs first in MS B of Kalila, in MSS G

72. Gonzalo de Berceo, La Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, ed. J. D. Fitz-Gerald, Paris,

1904, stanzas 326d, 616a, 697b; Historia troyana (en prosa y en verso), ed. R. Menéndez Pidal
con la ayuda de E. Varén Vallejo, Madrid, 1934, p. 37.

73. Repindengia occurs in San Laurencio 15d and Milagros 99d; repintencia in Santo Domingo
736d, Apolonio 23a, Maria Egipciaca 511, 1017, and Flores de filosofta, pp. 53, §5; rependencia in
San Milldén 210d; repentencia in Signos 74c, Alexandre P 45c, 794d, Kalila iii, 1253; iv, 262,
489, and Buenos proverbios ed. Knust, p. 30.

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 321

and T of Libro de buen amor, in MS E of Rimado de palacio and in MS E
of Sem Tob’s Proverbios morales.7* Throughout the fifteenth century,
femengia was suffered to maintain its position against the keen com-
petition of hemengia.

In Latin véhéméns, through its belated association with véhére,
could properly serve to qualify inanimate objects, ¢.g. the rapid flowing
of a brook or the blowing of winds. Romance vémentia that in part
underlies femeng(i)a does not seem to have inherited this function.
It refers preéminently to the doing of man, and its basic connotation
is that of “effort,” “insistence,” “zeal,” or, as Minsheu put it in
Shakespearian English, “great earnestnesse,” “exceeding endeauour,”
“heat in affections” (cf. also Goethe’s “heisses Bemuehn’’); more
modern equivalents would be “energy,” ““enthusiasm”’:

El Rey de los ciellos es de grant prouencia,
Siempre con los cuytados ha su atenengia,

En valer les a las cuytas es tota su femengia,
Deuemos seyer todos firmes en su creengia.

(Libro de Apolonio 93)

Of great frequency up to the end of the fourteenth century were the
combinations meter, poner, occasionally also traer femencia, comparable
to MSp. empenarse, afanarse, realizar esfuerzos:

Berceo, SDom. 326: Orador e alegre, de limpia continengia, En fer a Dios
seruicio methia toda fimengia; ibid., 697: Plogo al Exorgista mucho esta sen-
tencia, Metio en conjurarlo mucho mayor fimengia; Milagros 27: Estos avien
con ella amor e atenencia, En laudar los sos fechos metien toda femencia; ibid.
50: En buscarli servicio methie toda femencia; ibid., 378: En buscarli muerte
mala metien (C. Carroll Marden: ponjan) toda femencia; Kalila MS B, vi, 430:
Estonges comenco el cueruo a meter hemencia de fazer e dezir cosas que
pluguiesen a los buhos; Partidas, 1, 484: Otrosi facen soberbia metiendo toda su
femencia en allegar grandes riquezas; General estoria 168214: Por el grand es-
tudio e la grand femencia que troxo e puso siempre en el amor de Dios; Primera
crénica general 12423: E con el grand algo que troxieran metieron y tan grand
femencia, que a poco de tiempo fue cerca dacabado; ibid. 346b46: Este Yssem
fizo la puente de Cordoua; et tan grand femencia metio ell en fazerla, que el
mismo por si andaua et estaua con los maestros et obreros; Historia troyana 37:
Ca tan mafia fue la fimengia que los troyanos metieron en vencer e los griegos en
defenderse; Swmas de historia troyana, page 81: Ponia toda su femengia en
labranga; Conquista de ultramar, page 417b: Cerco el castillo de Zafardan, e
puso muy gran hemencia en como pudiese complir el primero fecho que habia
comenzado.

74. Comparison with the MS of Biblioteca Nacional tends to show that hemencia might
have been interpolated; it yields no sense.

322 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

Less common was the combination fazer femengia:

Sumas de historia troyana, page 137: fazia toda su femengia en aver ganados; Juan
de Mena, Cancionero castellano del siglo XV, 1, 201a: Ca el alma infinida e tan
soberana De cosas finidas no faze femencia.

Occasionally, femengia assumed the meaning of “solicitude,” “vigi-
lance” and even of “supervision,” “‘control”’:

Primera crénica general 485235: Por ende quiero yo morir antes por que non uea
pesar de lo que crie con tan grand femengia e con tan grand guarda; Partidas n,
53: Amas et ayas deben ser dadas a las fijas de los reyes que las crien et las
guarden con grant femencia; ibid., 1, 779: Como quier quel pro desto pertenesca

a todos, pero sefialadamiente la guarda et la femencia destas labores pertenesce al
rey.

More frequently found is the connotation of “successful work,”
“efficiency”:

Kalila iii, 142 : Sepas que los que son con el rrey non fueron con él siempre, mas
con su femencia alcangaron las dignjdades del rrey; ibid., xii, 26: Yo pugnare de
fazer aquellas cosas sobre que me pusieres con mayor femencia; ibid., xiv, 26:
Que el buen entendimiento e la valor e la femengia e la arte en este mundo, todas
son en poder de la ventura.

From “‘expertness” there was a way of arriving at the new significa-
tion of “experience,” “‘practice’’:

Libro de buen amor 622: Non pueden dar los parientes al pariente por herengia
EF] mester e el ofi¢io, el arte e la sabiencia, Njn pueden dar a la duefia el amor e
Ja querencia: Todo esto da el trabajo, el vso e la femencia.

From “efficiency” there is another link (from the viewpoint of the
employer) to “loyal devotion,” “‘enthusiastic codperation’”’ :
Kalila iii, 818: Et quien ofrece su lealtad e su femencgia a quien ge lo non grades¢e
es tal commo el que sienbra su simjente en los gamonales; Partidas u, 780:

Lealmiente et con grant femencia deben mandar fazer las labores aquellos que
son puestos sobrellas.

Rather unusual is the shading “inherent strength”’:

Rimado de palacio E 1391b: E sobre todo esto y sea paciencia, Que es virtud
mejor e de mayor ymengia Sobre todas las otras.

If applied to plants and fruits, “inward strength’ changes into
“exuberance’”’:

Libro de Alexandre P 2106: Las uvas de la vifia eran de grant femencia.

Of considerable importance were adverbial groups such as a, de,

SPANISH-PORTUGUESE ETYMOLOGIES 323

con (grant) femencia, also muy de femencia (cf. Middle Spanish muy de
prisa), of which only the last remained in use after 1400; their meaning
was “intensely,” “vigorously,” “eagerly,” “with interest,” “with
keen curiosity,” “straining every nerve”:

Berceo SDom. 616: Que que oraron ellos de muy grant fimmencia, Que que fueron
los otros de muy firme creengia; Libro de Alexandre P 1284: Entraron en pues
ellos a muy grant femengia; ibid., 2573: Metio en todo mjentes de muy grant
femencia; Primera crénica general 278b19: Este rey fizo uuscar los libros de los
sanctos Padres muy de femencia; ibid., 651217: cobrola el con grand femencia et
muy acuciosamientre; General estoria 299b37: Aquellos auien grand sabor que
uisquiesse este e€ que se criasse a grand femencia; Zifar 13: Sy con grant
femengia los quiere catar, bien puede ver quien le conseja bien o quien mal;
Rimado de palacio N 1453: Esaminaua sus dichos con muy mucha emencia.

The decay of femengia appears clearly after the year 1350 as most
of its meanings become obliterated; Juan Ruiz was probably among the
last who used poner femencia en algo (914c, 1338d). In the Cancionero
de Baena only the adverbial groups appear maintained: por femencia
(page 476); con femencia (page 635); con mucha femencia (pages 450,
469, 552); con toda femencia (page 494); con tanta femencia (page 382);
con (muy) grant femencia (pages 286, 391); con sotil femencia (page 285);
the same is true of the usage of contemporary poets like Pérez de
Guzman, Quirés, and Cota.’® The coup de grace to the doomed word
was the appearance of the Latinism vemencia;** henceforth, a tinge of
vulgarity accrued to moribund hemencia from fruitless competition
with its elegant doublet. From the noble concept of “insistence,” it
was degraded to signify “importunateness.”’ Nebrija listed it in 1492
as an equivalent of efficacia, vehementia, but Santaella avoided it care-
fully in rendering these Latin terms (1526); Covarrubias included it
without further comment, and Franciosini, with his characteristic
acumen, qualified hemencia as a solecism (“‘non é vocabolo da usare’’),
hemencioso as a provincialism (“‘vocabolo di contado”), and hemenciar
as an outright barbarism (“‘vocabolo rozzo e barbaro’’). In Portuguese,
femenga was also omitted in Bluteau’s authoritative dictionary (1720) .”7

Yakov MALkIEL
University of California

75. Cancionero castellano del siglo XV, ed. F. Foulché-Delbosc, Madrid, 1912-1915, 1, 589a;
Il, 301a, §89a.

76. The first instance of its use known to me is in Crianga e virtuosa dotrina, see Opisculos
literarios de los siglos XIV a XVI, ed. A. Paz y Melia, Madrid, 1892, p. 389.

77. The Cancionero de Baena is cited from the edition by Ochoa (Madrid, 1851), the Siete
Partidas from the edition by the Academy of the year 1807. All other references are made to

standard editions now commonly in use.—It may be of some interest to state that fervencia
occurs also in Old Spanish (Santillana) ; see cancionero Castellano del siglo XV, 1, 5 18a.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU
TYPE AEDIFICARE

Les £RUDITS QUI ONT ETUDIE L’UN OU L’AUTRE des différents aspects
du développement des verbes latins du type aedificare sont légion. Les
problémes que souléve l’historique de leurs dérivés en frangais et dans les
autres langues romanes se rapportent a la phonétique, a la sémantique,
4 la lexicographie, 4 |’étymologie et 4 la paléographie. Les études de
ce genre, comme |’a démontré récemment le professeur Charles Harold
Livingston, sont d’importantes contributions a notre connaissance de la
civilisation européenne au moyen 4ge. I] faut reconnaitre que nos de-
vanciers se sont exposés 4 des critiques sérieuses et que fort souvent
leurs résultats sont contradictoires, mais c’est grace 4 leurs travaux
préparatoires qu’on se trouve aujourd’hui 4 méme de tenter une synthése
de ces recherches aussi ardues que précieuses.

Antoine Thomas! a signalé deux formations typiques dans les textes
normaux de la littérature médiévale, 4 savoir, panificare >pannechier
(en 1368), penegier (en 1380), pennequier (en 1497) d’aprés Godefroy
(v, 716c) et significare>senegier, senechier, seneschier dans Renart le
Bestourné de Rutebeuf, dans un miracle de Gautier de Coinci et dans un
manuscrit qui contient le Perceval de Chrestien de Troyes et ses suites.”
Thomas cite douze ouvrages modernes ot senegier est représenté dans
les dialectes bourguignon, franc-comtois et suisse romand et il renvoie
au judéo-francais, ol penegier et senegier sont inconnus® mais ou se
trouve toute une famille d’autres verbes avec leurs dérivés qui pro-
viennent de racines latines ayant la terminaison -ificare. A vrai dire,
dans cet essai de synthése nous ne faisons que reprendre un sujet que
nous avons traité sommairement il y a dix-septans; ‘ c’est pourquoi notre
attention se portera surtout sur les publications récentes.

FROTIGIER

Godefroy (iv, 154b et 164c) a enregistré séparément deux verbes
qui certainement auraient dé étre réunis dans un seul article pour toutes
ces graphies: frogier, frougier, frugier, fruchier, frouchier. 11 en a donné

1. Romania, xxvi (1897), 436, et xxxvit (1908), 603.

2. Quant 4 nigier, qui est relevé chezWace et chez Eustache Deschamps par Godefroy,
Compl., x, 203a, l’étymologie nidificare a été proposée par Diez et Clédat, mais elle a été
modifiée en *nidicare par Gamillscheg et Gierach, Zts. rom. Phil., Beiheft, xxiv (1910), 156.

3. Nous écartons exprés deux mots qu’a employés Hagin le Juif, parce que leur formation
est tout a fait commune. Ce sont seneficacion “‘sens, signification,” qui est déja cité par Gode-
froy, Compl., x, 675b, et senefier “signifier, pronostiquer.”

4. The Astrological Works of Abraham ibn Ezra (Baltimore, 1927), p. 81.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 325

six exemples auxquels on peut en ajouter quatre autres d’aprés Ray-
naud, Langfors et Tilander.' Le sens propre “fructifier, porter des
fruits” convient 4 l'emploi du verbe dans la partie inédite du manuscrit
francais 12483 de la Bibliothéque Nationale, Roman du Vergier et de
l Arbre d Amors, Branche des royaux lignages, Vie de Saint Thomas
Becket 4819. Le sens figuré “‘atteindre un résultat, prospérer, profiter”
s’applique a la Vie de Saint Thomas Becket 588, Dit des outils de I ostel
(ot Raynaud a écrit frongier “faire trembler’’ par erreur), Dit de I'uni-
corne et del serpent, Plait Renart de Dammartin contre Vairon, Renart et
Piaudoue, Livre des manieres. Le verbe survit encore aujourd’hui dans
plusieurs dialectes. Jud® rattache frogier directement au latin fruticare,
qui est un dérivé de frutice et qui satisfait 4 la fois aux exigences de la
phonétique et de la sémantique.

Selon Tilander, |’antonyme de ce verbe est desfrochier dans le conte
de la Femme chaste convoitée par son beau frére. Une variante dans le Filz
au seneschal \ue deffroncher “languir, dépérir”’ par Godefroy (u, 46ob)
doit, d’aprés Tobler-Lommatzsch (u, 1595), étre corrigée en deff rouchier.
Ce verbe correspond 4 deifroujé “‘gater, abimer, terrasser’’ signalé dans
le patois de Périgueux par Wartburg (i, 834) art. fruticare. On peut
laisser de cété se deffrucher “‘s’esquiver, s’échapper” relevé par La
Curne de Sainte-Palaye (v, 25b) dans la traduction en prose de la
Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin exécutée trois ans aprés sa com-
position en vers; ce doit étre une faute d’impression faite par Ménard;
il s’agit sans doute du verbe se desfouchier relevé chez Cuvelier par
Godefroy (1, 588b).

Tilander corrige deux erreurs de graphie: froviance qui se trouve
dans la Branche 1v du Roman de Renart 4 \a page 119 du Supplément de
Chabaille, et froiance ‘“‘frottée, échec”’ confondu avec froier par Gode-
froy (iv, 154c) qui a été suivi en cela par l’éditeur Schultz-~Gora dans
Foulque de Candie 8295. Dans les deux cas on est en présence du méme
dérivé du verbe frougier employé dans la locution prendre male froujance
“avoir mauvais profit, profiter mal de.”

Scheler’ a écrit fruchefier avec un commentaire qui est enti¢rement
sans valeur. Tilander essaie de |’expliquer comme une contamination
extraordinaire de froucher et fructifier. Nous nous demandons si fruche-
fier nest pas une faute de scribe pour fructefier.

Tilander constate qu’il est du plus haut intérét de remarquer qu'il

5. Raynaud, Romania, xxv (1899), 59; Langfors, Neuph. Mit., xx1x (1928), 32 et XLI
(1940), 107; Tilander, Zts. rom. Phil., xiv (1925), 296-301.

6. Romania, tu (1926), 408.

7. A. Scheler, Dits et contes de . . . Jean de Condé, m (Bruxelles, 1867), 404.

326 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

existe une autre forme du verbe en judéo-frangais. II] cite dans le glos-
saire A publié par Lambert-Brandin:® frotigier “fructifier” avec froti-
gement “‘fructification.” On retrouve frotigier dans B 77r, Psaumes CV
24, D 162r, ibid., C 37v, Jérémie m, 16, E 120v, ibid., F 1v, Genése
1, 21, Gs.v. prh; frotigement dans C 172v, Osée 1x, 16 et dans D sv,
Genése xLIx, 22.°

TORIGIER

Dans le méme glossaire A, Tilander signale torigier “‘offrir de |’en-
cens”’ et trois verbes que nous allons examiner tout a l’heure: saintijer,
bonigier, eigier. Le verbe torigier’® se trouve aussi dans B 4gr, Osée n,
15, C 180r, Amos tv, 5, D 16v, Lévitique vi, 15, F 26v, ibid., E s2r,
Psaumes xx, 8, Gs.v. zkr. Tilander a passé sous silence torigement “‘en-
censement” dans A, Nombres vu, 14, qui se rencontre aussi dans S,
Deutéronome xxxiil, 10 et dans b 8r.

Cette idée d’encenser est exprimée autrement dans le Mistere de
Saint Quentin 9475 et 9619: turribuler et turriferant calqués sur le nom
latin turibulum et sur ladjectif turifer. Dupire’ ne reléve pas un tel
verbe, mais il dresse une liste de trente-cinq verbes en -fier, y compris
fructifier, sanctifier, vivifier, edifier, chez Molinet. Au douziéme siécle la
terminaison de ces latinismes avait été -efier d’habitude (mais pas tou-
jours, ¢.g., fructifier dans la Vie de Saint Thomas Becket 4818.) La

restauration de -ifier est due a une influence savante. Il parait in-
discutable 4 Tilander que frotigier, torigier, saintijer, bonigier, eigier,
qui sont fondés sur *frotificare, *torificare, sanctificare, *bonificare, aedi-
ficare, sont des formations demi-savantes. Darmesteter a démontré
que les verbes sont certainement populaires. I] faut noter que ces
dérivés sont exclusivement judéo-frangais comme l’a remarqué a juste
titre Meyer-Liibke aux articles 3536, 9002, 7567, 1205a, 229 (et 9416

8. Il nous faudra renvoyer souvent aux documents judéo-frangais. I sera plus commode de
les citer par les sigles adoptés dans les Recherches lexicographiques sur d’anciens textes francais
d origine juive (Baltimore, 1932), pp. 10-14, tant pour les imprimés que pour les manuscrits.
Dans cette étude les sigles essentiels seront A (de l’an 1240) : Glossaire hébreu-frangais du 13°
siécle par Lambert-Brandin; H (du 13° siécle): Rom. Studien, 1 (1872), 163-213, par Neu-
bauer-Boehmer; KI (du 11° siécle) : Les Gloses fran. de Raschi dans la Bible par Darmesteter;
KII: Les Gloses fran. dans les commentaires talmudiques de Raschi par Darmesteter-Blondheim;
O: Les Parlers judéo-romans et la Vetus latina par Blondheim; ZI (de l’an 1273) : The Astrologi-
cal Works of Abraham ibn Ezra par Levy; Z11: The Beginning of Wisdom par Levy-Cantera.
Nous ferons suivre les renvois aux manuscrits par l’indication du folio.

9. Sans importance phonétique sont fructefier cité dans Z et dans Charles le Chauve par
Wartburg, m1, 823 art. fructificare, et fructissement relevé uniquement dans Z par Godefroy,
IV, 165c.

10. Ce verbe est cité par Meyer-Liibke, art. 9002 turificare, sans renvoi.

11. N. Dupire, Jean Molinet—La Vie, Les Euvres (Paris, 1932), pp. 267 et 286. L. Spitzer,
Anales Instituto Ling., 1 (1944), 127, voit dans cette formation un reflet de l’idée chrétienne
de la grace divine.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 327

pour avijer)."* En revanche Darmesteter a négligé dans Romania (v,
1876, 149 note 3) de qualifier les verbes frotigier et eigier comme judéo-
francais aprés l’avoir fait dans Romania (1, 1872, 164-169). Par suite
la méme négligence se remarque pour les deux verbes dans le Traité
de la formation de la langue frangaise (page 125) qui précéde le Diction-
naire Général et dans W. P. Shepard, A Contribution to the History of the
Unaccented Vowels in Old French (Heidelberg, 1897, page 103); pour
frotigier seul dans le dictionnaire de Gamillscheg, page 401 (qui a dis-
cuté eigier correctement 4 la page 14); pour eigier seul dans F. J. Cum-
mings, Caesar's Vocabulary as Reflected in French (Philadelphia, 1934,
page 15).
SAINTIJER

A la page 81 de ZI on a déja signalé saintijer “sanctifier” dans A,
qui sert de source 4 Meyer-Liibke, art. 7567, et dans C; le verbe se
retrouve dans D 118v, E 175r, F 143r au verset Isaie Lxv, 5, dans G s.v.
hrm et dans u."4

Le nom saintijement a pris deux acceptions. Au sens abstrait de
“sanctification,” saintijement se trouve dans A, D 176r, F163v au verset
Proverbes xx, 25. Afin d’indiquer que l’idée de “sanctuaire”’ s’exprime
plus fréquemment en judéo-frangais par saintijement (comme dans les
trois glossaires A, D, E) que par saintuaire (qui se trouve dans le glos-
saire B et dans le texte imprimé de Raschi), Blondheim a joint saintije-
ment a \’article 131 des Parlers judéo-romans et la Vetus latina. \\ aurait
da le placer dans l’article 130, car ce n’est pas un dérivé de sanctu-
arium mais de sanctificare, verbe du latin ecclésiastique employé d’abord
par Tertullien.

Dans la Passion du Christ, composée vers la fin du dixiéme siécle, se
rencontre la forme tout 4 fait savante sanctificat. En 1100 le Psautier
d Oxford, qui est traduit sur le Psalterium gallicanum, a francisé le verbe
en saintefier 4 cété du nom saintificatiun. Le verbe reste tel quel en 1115
dans le Psautier de Cambridge, qui est calqué sur le Psalterium hebraicum,
mais déja |’expression pour “sanctification” commence 4 s’approprier
la méme terminaison qu’en judéo-frangais sous la forme saintefiement.
Ce nom passe en 1174 par saintissement dans la Vie de Saint Thomas

12. La variante malinjer dans F 6r, Genése xix, 9, 4 cété de la forme régulitre malinier
“faire du mal, agir mal” dans F 145v, Psaumes Lxxiv, 3, est due 4 une contamination avec
l’antonyme bonigier.

13. A la page 43 on peut corriger facilement la traduction anglaise “situation”’ qu’attribue
Cummings au judéo-frangais tonje. C’est un lapsus calami pour traduire “Lage’’ dans Meyer-
Liibke, art. 8985; tonje signifie ““Lage’”’ en allemand au sens de “‘tunique” dans A p. 104, dans

C 108v, D 94v, F o1r au verset Isaie mt 22, dans G s. v. ktm et dans b 8r.
14. H. Pflaum, Romania, ux (1933), 420.

328 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

Becket avant de se transformer en saintement dans la Somme des vices et
des vertus composée par Laurent du Bois en 1279. C’est par réaction
étymologique que les mots s’écrivent sanctifier et sanctification dés
1541.

Il convient de postuler l’étymologie *adsanctificare pour Vhapax
legomenon asseintijer “‘sanctifier” dans le glossaire F. Dans la série de
verbes judéo-francgais avec cette terminaison spéciale, on trouve le
méme préfixe dans abonijer et dans avijer.

BONIGIER

Nous avons adopté comme en-téte la graphie bonigier qui parait en
toutes lettres dans Z 4 la troisiéme personne du pluriel, tandis que les
caractéres hébreux des gloses pareilles dans A, B, F, G devraient étre
transcrits. La forme bonigent est la seule qu’ait citée Godefroy (1, 683b);
sa définition “avoir une bonne influence”’ pourrait étre acceptable dans
le cas de Z qui est un traité d’astrologie, mais elle est trop technique
pour étre appliquée aux quatre glossaires bibliques. Quoique Thomas,
(Romania, xxxv (1906), 140) ait commenté le verbe dans A dont
les éditeurs donnent la définition générale “faire du bien,” c’est la
signification particuliére de Godefroy qui est répétée par Wartburg
(1, 433a) art. *bonificare. Sous cette racine qui, dans le latin popualire des
Juifs, a pris la place du latin ecclésiastique benefacere, Meyer-Liibke, art.
1205a, cite quatre verbes judéo-romans d’aprés O art. 28. C’est pour-
quoi Barbier (Proc. Leeds Philos. Lit. Soc—Lit. Hist. Section, u, 1932,
309), aprés avoir comparé le verbe savant bonifier au judéo-francais
bonigier, se croyait obligé de comparer le nom savant bonification a
Vitalien bonificamento. 11 n’a pas eu Voccasion de connaitre le nom
abonijement imprimé dans O et le nom bonijement enregistré dans A.

La terminaison de bonijement se retrouve dans le francais boniment.
Sainéan (L’Argot ancien, Paris, 1907, p. 121) suppose que boniment
a été formé par l’intermédiaire du verbe argotique bonir, mais Dauzat
a remarqué a la page 97 de son dictionnaire que le nom familier précéde
bonir d’un siécle. Ce verbe, qui d’habitude a le sens de “dire, parler,”
a pris curieusement le sens contraire de “‘se taire.’’ L’explication de
Larchey’® est que “parler, étant trop connu, on lui aura donné le sens
contraire pour dérouter.”” A notre avis la signification dépend de
l’ambiance de la personne parlante. D’aprés Delvau"® ce sont les voleurs
qui emploient bonir au sens de “dire, parler,” tandis que l’idée de
“se taire’’ est donnée a bonir par les marbriers de cimetiére.

15. Dictionnaire historique d’argot (Paris, 1880), Suppl., p. 18.
16. Dictionnaire de la langue verte (Paris, 1867), p. 48.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 329

Dans un appendice de O, 4 la page 173, Blondheim a relevé abonijer
dans le glossaire C; ce verbe se retrouve dans F. Il a enregistré égale-
ment le judéo-espagnol aboniguar, qui dérive avec abonijer de *ad-
bonificare, et le judéo-catalan abonigar qui provient de *adbonicare.

On connait plusieurs verbes formés avec le méme préfixe en dehors
des parlers judéo-romans. Tilander (Lexique du Roman de Renart,
page 5) y reléve s’abonir au sens de “‘se donner tout entier, étre fidéle’’;
ce sens est assez éloigné de celui du frangais moderne abonnir, s’ abonnir.
Wartburg (1, 434 art. bonus) signale abouné “apaiser” en valdétain,
abonna “‘apaiser’’ en vaudois, abounir “‘avachir’ en limousin, abonna
“faire marir” en savoyard. Ce verbe-ci semble avoir subi |’influence de
Vitalien abbonire qui veut dire “faire mirir” ou “améliorer.” Cette
derniére acception se rattache au catalan abonar, au poitevin abounezir,
au périgourdin abounesi et, d’aprés Raynouard (11, 236b) au vieux
provencal abonesir. A Varennes, d’aprés Duchon (Gram. et dict. du
patois bourbonnais, page 19) on dit abonifier au lieu de “‘bonifier.’’ Gode-
froy (1, 26b) cite abonacer “calmer (en parlant du temps sur mer),
ramener 4 la bonace”’ au commencement du treiziéme siécle. En es-
pagnol abonanzar exprime la méme idée.

Dans O art. 28, Blondheim a cité l"hapax legomenon abonijement
dans le glossaire F au verset Jonas 1v, 4. Ce nom est tiré du verbe
abonijer a l exemple de avijement tiré de avijer.

AVIJER

Le verbe avijer “rendre la vie, donner la vie, laisser vivre, ranimer”’
est enregistré comme judéo-frangais par Tobler-Lommatzsch (1, 1247);
ils citent Blondheim qui I’a trouvé dans A et dans B. La méme formation
se retrouve dans les glossaires D, E, F. Vu que tous les mots de l'article
9416 du Rom. etym. Wtb. sont des verbes judéo-romans, Meyer-Liibke
aurait di donner comme en-téte *advivificare au lieu de vivificare. De
méme que advivere se présente comme |’équivalent du simple vivere,
la formation *advivificare a pris la place de vivificare. Blondheim a
remarqué que vivifcat trouvé au commencement d’une ligne dans une
inscription judéo-espagnole du huitiéme siécle 4 Merida peut venir de
vivificare, relevé auparavant chez Tertullien, ou bien de *advivificare,
origine que supposent toutes les formes postérieures dans les textes
juifs. La chute d’une des syllabes identiques en judéo-frangais s’est
produite par haplologie.

Plusieurs dérivés judéo-espagnols de *advivificare sont cités par
Blondheim dans N, page 139, et dans O, pages 18 et 172: abiviguar au
quinziéme siécle et au seiziéme; abeviguar au quatorziéme siécle, au

330 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

quinziéme siécle dans deux textes et encore une fois au seiziéme siécle;
abediguar encore usité 4 Istanboul. Hauptmann?’ y ajoute un exemple
de abeviguar dans une Bible de 1873 d’aprés Gaspar Remiro, tandis que
la forme insolite abediguar est confirmée par Wagner."®

Un autre hapax legomenon dans F est avijement “action de sauver
des vies.” Dans O, Blondheim donne aviuguanga en judéo-catalan;
ce nom correspond 4 abiviguanga usité en 1553 dans la Bible judéo-
espagnole de Ferrare.’® Les auteurs des textes normaux en vieux
francais emploient un substantif deviement “‘trépas, mort’ issu de
devier “faire mourir, tuer’; l’antonyme avier “faire vivre, sauver
la vie de” est conservé encore en savoyard.”°

EIGIER

Ici il vaudrait mieux commencer par deux substantifs et discuter le
verbe 4 la fin. Godefroy (1, 183b) parait avoir raison de considérer
aigement comme un nom tiré de aige <aqua dans le Nouveau coutumier
général et de l’expliquer dans ce passage-la par “usage de |’eau, action
de trouver |’eau,” mais certainement il fait erreur en y mettant Z.
Hagin le Juif a exprimé “eau” partout par la forme septentrionale iaue.
C’est le sens de “terrain cultivé” qui fut présent 4 |’esprit d’Hagin en
employant aigement a trois endroits en 1273. En 1293 Pierre d’Abano
a traduit ce mot francais au folio 34r par “‘aquarum spersionem”’ avec
la méme confusion entre aigement et aige, au folio 79r par “‘navigium”’
qui est la source de l’erreur “‘saling one the sea’’ dans la version anglaise
du seiziéme siécle, et au folio 83v par “aquationis”’ qui est rendu par
“love the watter well’’ en anglais.?! C’est le sens de “batiment”’ qu’il
faut appliquer dans A 76r, B 47v, F 86v au verset Ezéchiel x1, 2.

Dans Z 35r on rencontre le substantif aigeur et dans Z 93r la graphie
est eigeur. Dans A les éditeurs ont transcrit la glose aigor 4 cause de
l’absence du signe diacritique dans le manuscrit. I! faut lire aijor “‘ma-
con” dans les trois glossaires A, C 27r, D 61v au verset 1 Rois v 32.
Dans Z le sens est “‘laboureur.”

Z 93r est l’unique exemple donné par Godefroy (im, 17a) qui croit
que le mot signifiait “celui qui creuse la terre pour trouver |’eau.”
En 1292 Henri Bate a expliqué Z 35r par la circonlocution “laboratores

17. Hispanic Review, x (1942), 38, et xt (1943), 59.

18. Beitrige zur Kenntnis des Judenspanischen von Konstantinopel (Vienne, 1914), §131,
note 1.

19. L. Wiener, Mod. Lang. Notes, x1 (1896), 30.

20. Constantin-Désormaux, Dictionnaire savoyard (Annecy, 1902), p. 31.

21. Johns Hopkins Studies Rom. Lit. Lang., vi (1927), 98-99.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 331

terre seu agricole edificatores”; l’année suivante Pierre d’Abano a
traduit Z 35r par “naute” et Z 93r par “arator’’; puis en 1448 Louis
d’Angulo a rendu Z 93r par “domificator.”””

Le verbe aigier, eigier est enregistré fautivement par Godefroy (1,
183b et m1, 17a) aux sens de “rebatir” et “fouiller la terre pour y cher-
cher l’eau, pour faire un puits.” La premiére définition, comme I’a déja
remarqué Blondheim dans O art. 9, est celle de Darmesteter, (Romania,
1, 1872, 169) dont la source est le glossaire C, Amos 1x, 11 et 14.
A la page 166, Darmesteter l’avait précisée par “batir” dans B, Esdras
v, 11. Ce verbe est assez répandu en judéo-francais soit au sens de
“batir, construire’ soit au sens de “cultiver, labourer.”” Le lemme
hébreu banah, proprement “‘batir,” doit refléter l’arabe ‘ammar “‘batir,
cultiver,”—deux acceptions qui sont réunies dans l’allemand bauen.
Ailleurs on rencontre aigier ou eigier dans A pages 227 et 248, D 8qr,
E 136v, F 7ov, H 129,” Z page gg, a 2v.

Thomas*™ a fait allusion aux trois exemples de la formation demi-
savante edefier donnés par Godefroy (m1, 6a) au sens de “planter,
greffer.”’ Il y ajoute un autre dans la deuxiéme rédaction du Moniage
Guillaume 5009 en notant la confusion qui parait s’étre produite en
vieux francais entre edefier <aedificare et atefier <aptificare. En effet
edefier sert de variante a atefier dans Foulque de Candie 7137 qu’a lu
Schulz-Gora de cette fagon: “Des clous des vignes que tes sire atefia.”
Dans Ges. rom. Lit., 49 (1936), page 351, il se demande s’il faut rapporter
atefier 4 clous ou a vignes quoiqu’il y renvoie a sa propre étude dans Indo-
germanische Sprachkunde (xxxm, 1914, 46). La il l’avait défini “planter,
greffer,” mais il a dd hésiter en croyant voir une trace de actif dans
actefier. Godefroy (1, 89b), qui a défini actefier par “‘croitre, pousser”
dans |’Ovide Moralisé, Y'a fondu avec actiffié ““excité”’ dans le Mystére
de la Passion par Arnoul Greban. Dans ce cas une autre confusion s’est
produite par mégarde entre actefier, simple graphie pour attefier <apti-
ficare, et actiffier qui correspond au galicien aitivar “activer, aviver,
exciter’’ donné comme un dérivé de activus par Wartburg (1, 23b).

Aux cing exemples de edifier déja mentionnés on peut ajouter cing
exemples supplémentaires: dans une charte du douziéme siécle;*> dans
Renart le Contrefait 8161; dans une ordonnance de 1348 citée par Gode-

22. Louis a traduit le mot par l’intermédiaire du catalan lavrador.

23. Latranscription aieret a été reconnue comme fautive par Wartburg, 1, 43a.

24. Mélanges d’étym. fran. (Paris, 1927), pp. 7-8.

25. Ch. Bigarne, Patois et locutions du pays de Beaune (Beaune, 1891), p. 86; il compare cet
emploi de edifier 4 celui de aedificare hortos chez Cicéron. Dans ZI, 100, nous avons fait allusion
a l’acception agricole de aedificia chez Jules César et de aedificare terram, aedificatio, hedificare

vineas chez Du Cange. On vient de voir qu’en 1292 Henri Bate a traduit aigeurs “‘laboureurs”’
par “laboratores terre seu agricole edificatores.”

332 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

froy (vu, 711b) art. tierciable; dans la Coutume de Bretagne ow ediffier
est usité pour désigner tous les travaux utiles faits sur les champs;**
dans un document de 1438.?"

En vieux francais on connait plusieurs mots apparentés 4 atefier
et 4 edefier avec la méme nuance agricole. Godefroy (1, 491-492, et 111,
266a) reléve attefit “greffe, ente d’un arbre sur un autre, arbre enté”’;
atuffit qu’il traduit vaguement par “sorte de terrain’’;** antifier “enter,
planter.” Puis Godefroy (im, sb) signale edifice au sens de “plantation”
et au sens de “feuillage.’” Dans Florence de Rome 3858 on trouve edifi
“plantation, jardin.’’?®

Wartburg (1, 113b) et Thomas, ibid., enregistrent bon nombre de
dérivés dialectaux de aptificare qui signifient “amender la terre; faire
pousser des plantes; greffer des arbustes; élever des animaux.” Wart-
burg renvoie 4 l’emploi de raffier “replanter” 4a Montjean; dans ce
patois angevin affier se dit des constructions, des plantations, des ani-
maux ou des hommes d’aprés Verrier-Onillon. Thomas cite aussi
redifier “‘greffer de nouveau” dans une archive messine de 1241 comme
un dérivé de reaedificare.

RECHIER

C’est précisément cette étymologie reaedificare qui est proposée par
le professeur Charles Harold Livingston* pour le judéo-frangais rechier
“transvaser, tirer au clair” qu'il reléve dans le glossaire A d’aprés
Thomas.*! Thomas enregistre (vin en) reschaisons dans un texte or-
léanais que Godefroy a emprunté 4 Du Cange au sens de “(vin) re-
posé, tiré au clair.” Il a été frappé par le manque de définition chez
Godefroy pour quatre mots relatifs 4 la fabrication ou au commerce des
vins: reschier (qui est répété par Cotgrave au sens de “‘to shift, or take
out of one thing to put into another’’); reec et reequié chez Ch. de
Beaurepaire, De la vicomté de l'eau de Rouen et de ses coutumes au 13°
et au 14° siécle (Evreux, 1856); reechié (dont nous allons discuter le sens
tout 4 l’heure) dans le Martyre de Saint Baccus. Thomas corrige les
traductions erronées données aux trois exemples de resquier dans une
archive de Tournay par Godefroy et aux deux exemples de reech dans
le Livre des Mestiers par Lespinasse-Bonnardot. I] ajoute reech dans une

26. M. Planiol, La Trés Ancienne Coutume de Bretagne (Rennes, 1896), p. 51, ligne 7.

27. G. Musset, Glossaire des patois et des parlers de ’ Aunis et de la Saintonge, (La Rochelle,
ag des patois de la Suisse romande, u (Neuchatel, 1935), 101, précise atuffit dans
un document bernois de 1266 par “travail d’amélioration, de mise en valeur d’une terre.”

29. A. Wallenskéld, Florence de Rome, u (Paris, 1907), 159.

30. MLN, tv (1942), 631-638.
31. Romania, xxx1x (1910), 249.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 333

charte latine de 1190 d’un cartulaire inséré dans Du Cange sous |’en-
téte reletum, terme bas latin qui signifie le droit exclusif qu’un seigneur
avait de vendre son vin en détail pendant quarante jours; (dans cet
article Du Cange explique que “haec charta revocatur in declaratione
anno 1320 ubi pro reech legitur rest’). M. Livingston a trouvé un autre
exemple de reech chez Beaurepaire qui remarque que cet adjectif s’em-
ploie encore en normand et il a suppléé de nouveaux exemples du nom
écrit rec et reec en 1281 et reke en 1375 dans les documents anglo-
francais dépouillés par A. L. Simon. A cet égard on peut citer deux
passages ou le verbe a été enterré par Godefroy (v1, 5374); ila emprunté
celui de 1415 a Carpentier dans le glossaire de Du Cange s.v. rasare
(ubi de mensuris liquidorum agitur quae comperi debent) :

Et ant ragié les vins du truel. (1383, Compt. de P. Serer, prév. de Montbrison’
frais de vendange, folio 6v, Arch. Loire.)

Item de rascher vins de batel en autre bort a bort. . . . xvi. deniers parisis du
tonneau. (1415, Arch. JJ 170, piéce 1.)

Godefroy les a enregistrés sous l’en-téte rachier (qui est fautif pour
esrachier dans le Bestiaire de Philippe de Thaon)* avec un renvoi a
larticle esrachier. Il y a placé la graphie ragier “déraciner, arracher”’
qu’il faut mettre 4 part. II s’est laissé induire en erreur par les homo-
nymes ragier: il y a superposé notre verbe ragier, rascher qu’il traduit a

tort par “enlever, transborder’’ au lieu de “‘soutirer, transvaser.”’

La traduction “déraciner, arracher”’ a été attribuée aussi par Chate-
lain 4 rachier dans le Mistere Saint Quentin, mais elle a été corrigée en
“couvrir de crachats” par Dupire qui remarque que Godefroy (Compl.
Ix, 238a) donne les graphies crachier, rachier.** Une legon du vers 6542
d’un manuscrit du Roman de la Violette a dérouté Buffum: “Lors li
racha en mi le vis.” Il avoue 4 la page 302 de son édition publiée en
1928: “Le verbe rachier ‘cracher,’ oublié par Godefroy, est bien connu;
cf. le picard, encore usité, rakier; mais cette action grossiére est in-
admissible ici; c’est sans doute une mauvaise correction d’un texte
déja corrompu. Les manuscrits tardifs C D donnent des verbes usuels
[le rataint; ly regette], B donne retiche, peut-€tre pour rentiche (re+-en-
tichier) dans le sens de ‘repiquer’; dans tous les manuscrits le verbe

32. Thomas, Romania, xxxvu (1909), §75, note 3.

33. Wartburg, Frz. etym. Wtb., m1, 235A, art. eradicare.

34. N. Dupire, Jean Molinet: La Vie, Les Geuvres (Paris, 1932), p. 159. Quatre autres
exemples de rachier “‘cracher’’ se trouvent dans Leser, Fehler und Liicken in Li Sermon Saint
Bernart, p. 80; Walberg, La Vie de Saint Thomas Becket, 1938; Escallier, Vocabulaire latin-fran-
cais, §459; Du Cange, s.v. rascare. C’est un mot d’origine imitative de formation trés ancienne.
Sainéan, Autour des sources indigénes, p. 53, considére cracher comme une simple onomatopée
dont le point de départ est crac attesté dés le 11° siécle chez Raschi.

334 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

commence par 7; je ne vois aucune correction plausible.” Or Meyer-
Liibke a répété rachier et le verbe picard aux articles 7017 et 7074 sous
lonomatopée rak- et sous *rasicare. Cette racine du latin vulgaire a
donné en espagnol rascar “gratter, raper’’ et rasgar “déchirer, lacérer’’;
donc nous nous permettons de suggérer qu’ici racha veut probable-
ment dire “lacéra.”’ Puisqu’une telle acception est inconnue ailleurs en
vieux francais, nous préférons relier retiche dans B au verbe estiquier,
estichier “‘piquer, transpercer, asséner (un coup)”; le cas échéant on
pourrait amender Ji racha en restacha qui serait relié 4 estachier, etachier
“transpercer, asséner (un coup), frapper avec force.’’*®
Revenons maintenant aux trisyllabes, par exemple, reechier, auprés
de rechier. Tantdt la vieille langue a laissé subsister hiatus produit par
la chute d’une consonne médiale, tantét elle a contracté les deux voyelles
en une seule syllabe: despeechier—despechier, empeechier—empechier,
preechier—prechier. M. Livingston affrme qu’on a eu recours a une
_consonnification et que dans reschier il y a une analogie avec les verbes
composés soit avec le préfixe simple re- soit avec le préfixe double
res-. Il dit que I’s dans rascher, reschier, resquier, reschaison est sans
valeur étymologique. A mon avis |’explication fournie pour meechief
et pour eegaree peut s’appliquer dans le cas de reschier—reechier: “I's
tombant dans la prononciation laisse, comme trace de sa présence, un
son faible, sorte d’e muet qui allonge la voyelle précédente.’’**
Peut-étre a-t-on passé exprés sur deux substantifs: rechaus cité sans
définition par Godefroy (v1, 662a) dans deux chartes du treiziéme
siécle chez Beaurepaire et reec usité en 1396 dans le Coustumier de la
vicomté de Dieppe par Guillaume Tieullier d’aprés Thomas-Delboulle,
(Romania, xxxvi, 1907, 289). On reconnait tout de suite notre mot dans
rachir employé par les médecins de Luxembourg au sens de “se clarifier,
se décanter (en parlant d’un liquide) .’’*” I] ne faut pas prendre au sérieux
l’étymologie latine rigare donnée par Cordier au verbe rajie dans le
parler de Brillon; ce qui est 4 retenir c’est le fait qu’il y signale rajie
“soutirer le vin, tirer a clair un liquide”’ et rajaou “celui qui soutire, qui
transvase.’’8
Nous venons d’indiquer que Thomas connaissait un exemple de
rechier en judéo-frangais grace au glossaire publié par Lambert-Brandin.
On a enregistré, avec un renvoi 4 Raschi qui fournit le plus ancien

35. La forme qui est imprimée racher 4 la page 560 des Works of Guillaume de Salluste Sieur
Du Bartas, m (Chapel Hill, 1940), est corrigée en racler 4 la page 48 par U. T. Holmes.

36. A. Darmesteter, Reliques scientifiques, 1 (Paris, 1890), 224.

37. M. Lejeune, Bulletin Soc. liégeoise lit. wall., x- (1900), 383.

38. F.S. Cordier, Vocabulaire des mots patois en usage dans le dépt. de la Meuse (Paris, 1833),
460.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE _ 335

exemple du verbe, onze exemples du mot dans d’autres glossaires
bibliques qui offrent les variantes reichier, rochier, rejier, rajier®® Blond-
heim a interprété par redegier “soutirer (du vin), tirer au clair’’ les
legons qu’il avait trouvées dans son dépouillement des manuscrits
du traité talmudique Baba Qamma. La on constate une transposition
des lettres dalet et resch qui est caractéristique des scribes hébreux.*
Les cinq legons semblent étre rdejier, rodejier, rejded, dejder, drejier.
Il est clair que cette glose est trop modifiée pour qu’on puisse choisir
entre r[e]dejier et drejier comme originale au onziéme siécle. Le choix
qui s’impose a de l’importance pour le fonds de |’argumentation. Bien
entendu redejier viendrait a l’'appui de l’étymologie reaedificare proposée
par M. Livingston.

Le maitre incontestable de |’étymologie francaise a consacré quatre
articles dans Romania aux mots en question. En 1897 Thomas a rap-
proché pannechier, penegier de frotigier et de aigier. En 1907 il a fait un
relevé des dérivés de *torificare, sanctificare, *bonificare, aedificare dans
le glossaire A. En 1908 il a mis dans la méme catégorie senechier,
senegier. En 1910 il a recueilli rechier en judéo-frangais et des formes
diverses du verbe, du participe passé, de l’adjectif et du nom dans les
textes normaux, rack en anglais et arraca en gascon; il a protesté contre
l’étymologie de Mistral qui a ramené arraca au provengal raco “marc
de raisin’; il n’y a fait mention d’aucun verbe en -ficare. M. Livings-
ton s’est rendu compte qu’il est impossible de tirer arraca de reaedifi-
care. Quoiqu’on ait relevé le gascon arecar au début du quinziéme siécle
et rack seulement 4 partir de la deuxiéme moitié du quinziéme siécle, il
suppose que le verbe anglais est beaucoup plus ancien et que c’est arecar
qui a été emprunté a rack lequel continue le verbe reequier du Nord qui
4 son tour correspond 4 reechier du Centre lequel représente le latin
reaedificare.

Voici la justification sémantique offerte par M. Livingston: “From
a general sense ‘build up, improve,’ discernible in these (sc. Late Latin)
forms and uses of aedificare and reaedificare, one can easily see how the
latter may have been applied to the process of ‘soutirage’ or the re-
fining of wine. The prefix re-, which may have been a Vulgar Latin
combination with aedificare, would represent the step in the transfer

39. Johns Hopkins Studies Rom. Lit. Lang., Extra vol. v (1932), §§686 et 688.

40. Blondheim a bien vu doisil dans Ku 324 ov la legon de cing manuscrits commence par
un dalet et celle des cing autres commence par un resch. Dans ku 327, dromel “dromadaire”
provient de quatre lecons: dromel, dormel, domel, rdomel. La bonne legon de Ku 329, duch-
edes, ““duchés,” est tirée de sept legons dans douze manuscrits: duchedes, ruchedes, ducheres,
rucheres, duchés, ruchés, duchreres. Dans Ku 1099, rolves est resté incompréhensible 4 Blond-
heim; la glose y est dolves “douves (dans le foie du mouton atteint de cachexie aqueuse).””

336 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

of the wine from the lees in one cask into another clean cask.”’ Chose
certaine ni aigier ni edefier n’est usité nulle part en décrivant le soutirage
du vin. Ils ont acquis beaucoup de significations spéciales relatives 4
l’architecture, 4 la mise en valeur des terres, 4 l’arboriculture et a
l’élevage—mais non 4 la viticulture.

Par contre M. Livingston pense que le N.E.D. et ses devanciers ont
tort de ramener I’anglais rack au francais raqué qui se dit du vin ex-
primé du marc de raisin: “The processes of rack and raqué have nothing
in common; to rack wine is to refine it of all suspended matter and to
produce a wine of superior quality.” Nous avons déja fait allusion au
premier exemple du verbe dans le commentaire talmudique de Raschi;
au folio 115b du traité Baba Qamma il a expliqué que le soutirage peut
se faire 4 travers une piéce d’étoffe qu’on place sur le goulot d’un
vaisseau. De nos jours un inspecteur général de la viticulture en France,
P. Viala, a bien décrit, dans la Grande Encyclopédie (xxx, 1019) le
procédé de vinification: quand on soutire le vin pour le clarifier, il faut
le faire avec précaution car, bien que les lies floconneuses tombent et
forment un dépét qui se contracte, elles ont tendance 4 remonter dans
le vin d’elles-mémes ou sous le moindre mouvement du liquide. A cet
égard il faut se rappeler que marc (de raisin) ne date que du quinziéme
siécle et que (vin) raqué n’a pas d’historique avant 1600. Aujourd’hui
le vin au-dessus de la lie présente 4 l’esprit l’idée d’un vin trouble,
d’un vin dont la limpidité a été altérée. Au figuré on emploie Jie par
rapport 4 un malheur ou a un élément de rebut. I] convient ici d’essayer
de nous placer mentalement dans |’ambiance moyen4ageuse. Autrefois
on ne se figurait pas qu’avant le soutirage le vin était absolument d’une
qualité inférieure et—chose curieuse—les auteurs des textes médiévaux
voyaient dans le vin qui n’est pas encore transvasé exactement la
méme image de vin reposé que les écrivains modernes voient dans le
vin qui a été décanté.

Un des exemples précités n’a rien 4 voir avec la fabrication ou le
commerce des vins. Godefroy n’a pas traduit reechié dans le Martyre
de Saint Baccus édité par Jubinal:

Si li muevent noise et contens,
Ne la le lessent sejorner;
Mais de prison le font torner
En autre por plus errager;

Et ce apele on reechié.

La je ne dirais pas “soutiré, transvasé’’ mais “calmé, tranquille.”
Le mot correspond a raqueé “‘apaisé, calmé’” dans Doon de Maience

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 337

5062 qui est enregistré par Godefroy (vi, 603c) 4 cété de se raqueer
“s’apaiser, se calmer” dans Doon de Maience 5417 et immédiatement
aprés racque “‘marc de raisins’’ dans les Comptes faits par la ville d Abbe-
ville et chez Despériers et raqué “exprimé du marc de raisin” chez
Olivier de Serres.

La locution vin sur lie se rapporte au vin qu’on a laissé reposer pour
que la lie soit bien tombée au fond du tonneau. Godefroy (Compl. x,
8ob) la cite dans Esclarmonde et dans la Vie et histoire du maulvais riche;
on la retrouve dans Godefroid de Bouillon 16025 (oi Gachet explique
que “‘le bon vin doit étre en effet au-dessus de la lie sans aucun mélange
avec elle; il est encore d’usage de laisser le vin sur lie pendant tout
Phiver qui suit sa fabrication, et de ne le soutirer qu’au mois de mars’’);
Anseis de Mes 7224 (ot l'on boit bon vin sor lie); Courtois d Arras 99
(ot l'on désire “de bon vin clair”); Baudouin de Sebourc (cité par
Littré); Faictz et Dictz de Jean Molinet (a la page 1116 de l’édition de
Dupire) ; Renart le Contrefait (cité par Dupire).

En judéo-frangais on passe de lidée d’un vin reposé 4 celle d’un
homme reposé dans le mot parasynthétique alié¢ “‘tranquille (comme
du vin qui repose sur sa lie)”’ dans les glossaires A, B, C, D, E, F au
verset Isaie vu 4.41 C’est la glose du lemme hébreu shamar qui est
expliqué clairement par M. H. Bresslau, Hebrew and English Dict.,
page 628: “The dregs, the sediment at the bottom of a cup or cask,
the lees of wine, also used of wine that keeps well; to rest upon one’s
lees is a figure indicating to continue quietly, unconcerned, in one’s
former condition.” Etant donné que lie est 4 la base de alié¢,® il ne me
semble pas étre trés hasardeux de vouloir établir une parenté sémantique
entre racque “marc de raisins” et raqueé “apaisé, calmé.’’ A mon avis le
mot raqueé est le méme que reechié. Ce vocable reechié fait partie de la
série reché, reequie, reequiez, resquiez dans étude de M. Livingston.
La plus ancienne forme connue jusqu’ici est reech qui lui fait l’effet
d’étre un adjectif verbal. Vu que Thomas |’avait découvert dans une
charte latine relative au vin qui date de 1190, on est justifié 4 faire
reculer davantage la date du verbe. J’ose croire qu’encore une fois
cest 4 l’exégéte Raschi de Troyes que revient le mérite d’avoir in-
troduit un vocable dans la langue francaise, et j’estime qu’il I’a fait
sous la forme drejier. L’existence d’une forme telle que drejier est

41. Johns Hopkins Studies Rom. Lit. Lang., Extra vol. v (1932), §57-

42. Dans la Manekine 5770, Suchier tire la forme aliet de alegier “‘alléger”’; peut-étre pour-
rait-on y voir un verbe alier “‘tranquilliser, calmer.” Le néologisme du 19° siécle, élier, veut
dire “soutirer des vins du tonneau en y laissant la lie.” On trouve alie pour “lie de vin” 4 la

page 3 du Lexique du langage populaire de M4con et des environs (M4con, 1903) par Personne
et par Tout-le-Monde (pseudonymes de L. Jacquelot et de L. Lex.).

338 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

4

douteuse a cause de l’incertitude dans la transcription des gloses hé-
braiques, mais pas plus que pour |’authenticité de redejier. Il est patent
que redifier est simplement le pendant de edifier tout comme raffier est le
pendant de affier, mais nulle part on n’a rencontré *edegier. Somme toute
*edegier a cOté de edefier n’aurait pas l’air hybride plus que frotigier a
cété de fructefier qui existent |’un et ’autre en judéo-frangais.

On s’est déja apergu que des verbes avec |’acception “‘soutirer” et
leurs dérivés sont assez répandus dans la littérature médiévale. Dans
sept glossaires judéo-frangais du treiziéme et du quatorziéme siécle
on rencontre les graphies rechier (A, E), reichier (C), rochier (D, F),
rejier (B), rajier (G); dans les textes normaux on trouve les formes
verbales rascher (en 1415), reschier (en 1350), resquier (en 1397),
ragier (en 1383) et les participes reché, reechié, reequié (au treizi¢me ~
siécle). M. Livingston accepte les traits dialectaux comme un critére
précis en vieux francais. En comparaison avec la désinence-echier au
Centre ou-equier au Nord, il explique la consonne chuintante de
aijier, eigier dans A comme une caractéristique de l'Est; les éditeurs
Lambert et Brandin ont localisé le dialecte du scribe de préférence dans
la Haute-Sadne. Cependant la graphie rechier au lieu de rejier appuyerait
la conclusion formulée par Bruneau: le dialecte du glossaire A semble
étre de Troyes.“

Il y a un groupe de mots qui expriment I’idée de “‘crible”’ dont le son
ressemble 4 celui des mots en question. Godefroy (v1, 738b) cite rege
en 1474, reige en 1305 et en 1503; On peut y <jouter reige* en 1334.
Godefroy (v1, 741b et vil, 196b) sépare deux graphies du méme verbe:
regier en 1498, reigier*® en 1614, rigier en 1463. Wartburg (Frz. etym.
Wtb., ut, 153) a dressé un long inventaire des restes du latin vulgaire
*dragiu sans aphérése et avec aphérése.*’ A son avis les mots tels que
rége ne peuvent pas étre séparés des mots tels que drége.** Aux articles
2762a et 7258 du Rom. etym. Wtb., Meyer-Liibke n’est pas du méme

43. A l’avis de H. Schuchardt, Zts. rom. Phil., xxx (1906), 322, la disparition de la f pro-
tonique dans aedificare est paralléle 4 mavigare >nagier; aussi doit-on postuler une étape *aedi-
vigare >aigier. H. Rheinfelder, Bibi. Arch. Rom., 18 (1933), Pp. 71, qui connait aigier seule-
ment au sens propre, remarque que le verbe portugais eivigar est vieilli.

44. Revue ling. rom., v (1929), 116.

45. E. Fairon et J. Haust, Régestes de la Cité de Liége (Liége, 1933), p. 305. Godefroy, vi,
7414, reléve regeur “‘cribleur” en 1498.

46. On connaissait auparavant cet exemple grace 4 A. Body, Bulletin Soc. liégeoise lit. wall.,
vit (1885), 156.

47. J. Jud, Zts. rom. Phil., xxxvmt (1917), 64, dit que “der Schwund des Anlauts d—
scheint auf gall. Lenition zu beruhen’’; je crois que par 1 il entend que la chute de la consonne
initiale parait étre le résultat d’un amuissement phonétique en celtique.

48. Donc Wartburg est d’accord avec Grandgagnage, Dict. étym. langue wallonne, u

(Bruxelles, 1880), 290, note 2, avec Horning, Zts. rom. Phil., xx1 (1897), 459, et avec Ron-
jat, Revue langues rom., Lx (1916), 108.

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 339

avis et il hésite 4 combiner les deux séries de dérivés 4 cause de leurs
aires dialectales. Voila pourquoi il convient d’énumérer avec indication
de la localité plusieurs des nombreuses formes trouvées 4 travers les
dialectes gallo-romans par Wartburg et par les compilateurs de ses
sources. Pour le nom on peut choisir dradza dans le Vellay, drajo
a Larche, drai en Provence, draie 4 Pierrelatte, driyé 4 Blonay, dréyi
a Lyon auprés de rége 4 Spa, rédje 4 Liége, rauge 4 Bulson, rauche
aux Vouthons, réche 4 Chatenois. Pour le verbe “cribler” on peut
choisir draja en Provence, drayi a Lyon, draye 4 Crémieu, droia a
Vogiié, droya dans le Vivarais, redraya “‘cribler de nouveau” en Pro-
vence auprés de rdjie 4 La Poutroie, erdji 4 La Baroche, rédji 4 Fosse-
lez-Namur, rédzi dans les Ardennes, réjer dans les Vosges, raugie
4 Bulson, raujer aux Vouthons. Meyer-Liibke renvoie lui-méme au
haut-engadin dreg et au bas-engadin rai, et Gartner*® met céte a cdéte
le dratx de Dissentis et le ratx de Schweiningen; de méme dans le dé-
partement du Cantal on dit draguil “petit crible,” draguiliar “passer
au crible,” racal “‘son de la farine,”’ racaliar “‘tamiser le blé.’’*°

Je crois que drejier a pu évoluer en rejier par une aphérése semblable.
M. Livingston a déja attiré l’attention sur la possibilité que raque cor-
responde a draque: ““Weekley may be right in connecting this root
(Provencal raco) with modern French dréche ‘residue of malt, grapes,
etc.’ The F. E. W. under *drasca ‘Darrmalz,’ to which it relates dréche,
cites Old French drasche, Middle French draque (Picard). It is not
impossible that raque, racque (raqué, raco)™ is a variant form of draque,
identical in meaning; cf. Old French draoncle, raoncle, draoncler, raoncler,
rancler (English rankle) .”

Parmi les dérivés de *drasca offerts par Wartburg (11, 156) il con-
vient de citer drécher “‘jeter les glands dans une fosse’’ (chez Larousse),
draisse “‘marc de raisin’”’ en 1596, dréche “‘dréche” en 1688, drache chez
Littré (qui tire rache “lie du mauvais goudron et de l’huile”’ de *rasica),
drage “dréche” 4 Reims, drauje “‘dréche” 4 Namur, dréchi “eau de vie
de marc” 4 Grenoble, dracha “sédiment déposé par le beurre fondu”
dans la Suisse romande, drasca “‘écraser le raisin” au Béarn. Il corrige
la définition erronée “carouge” donnée 4 drasche par Godefroy (u,
766a) en “résidu du malt qui a servi 4 brasser.” La Godefroy reléve
drache “‘rafle du raisin” chez Olivier de Serres; c’est dans le méme

49. Raetor ische Gr tik (Heilbronn, 1883), p. 16.

50. P. Malvezin, Glossaire de la langue d’oc (Paris, 1909), pp. 172 et 247. Il n’est pas sans
intérét de signaler que ce mot eut droit de cité dés 1337 dans une archive latine de Marseille

ot Du Cange a lu (in grano) draihato “‘criblé.”

51. Mistral donne les graphies raco, draco, racho, dracho et il renvoie aussi au frangais
dréche.

340 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

ouvrage, Théétre d’ Agriculture, qu’on apprend que les vins raqués “sont
les moins delicats a cause qu’ils tiennent beaucoup de la substance du
marc.” Tobler-Lommatzsch (1, 2064) signalent draske “‘dréche’”’ dans
les Vers de le Mort par Robert le Clerc et draschier “mangeur de dréche”
dans le Roman de Rou qu’a composé Wace avant 1174. C’est 4 Gode-
froy (Compl. tx, 415a) que le Dict. Gén. a emprunté |’exemple de (lie
de farine ou) draque usité 4 Chauny en 1410; l'article dréche est congu
ainsi (en abrégé) : “Origine incertaine. On dit aussi drague, plus ancien-
nement draque; dréche semble étre pour drache, et il est difficile de
séparer les deux mots. Cf. latin du moyen Age drascus, drasca, dréche;
anc. fran. drasche; drache dans O. de Serres. (Technol.) Résidu de
malt qui demeure au fond de la cuve 4 brasser aprés le soutirage du
moit de biére. (Par ext.) Résidu de la fermentation alcoolique des
grains, des pommes de terre.”

Meyer-Liibke, art. 2767, a recueilli drasche, dréche, drague, drage,
drége en frangais, drécha dans la Suisse romande, dratse au Bas-Valais
et drasko au Rouergue. I] en explique l’origine de cette fagon: “Die
primare Bedeutung ist nordfrz., daher da wohl der Ausgangspunkt;
die Nebenformen mit -g- weisen auf *drasica. Wohl gallisch, als Aus-
druck der Brauerei; vgl. brace, cerevisia. (Aus gall. *drasca zu slav.
droska Kurylowicz rechnet mit einer durch das Rom. nicht gerecht-
fertigten Grundform.)” Notons que Meyer-Liibke a rattaché drap,
droue, dru a d’autres types gaulois et retenons, quoique l’identité du
gaulois *drasca et du slave *droska soit douteuse, une phrase de Kury-
lowicz, Mélanges linguistiques offerts d J. Vendryés par ses éléves (Paris,
1925, p. 210): “Le *droska slave, qui correspond exactement 4 *drasca,
serait issu de *drogska; il s’agirait d’un élargissement de *drag- qu’on
retrouve dans le vieil islandais dregg (pluriel dreggiar), ‘levain’; vieux
lithuanien drage, vieux prussien (pluriel) dragios, ‘levain.’”’™

Toujours a la recherche du prototype des mots passés en revue ci-
dessus, nous allons faire allusion de nouveau 4 l’anglais rack qui sig-
nifie “to draw off wine from the dregs.” Peut-étre sera-t-il loisible de
tracer un peu l’historique de ce mot dreg qui est usité d’habitude au
pluriel. Le N. E. D. Yenregistre sous la forme drege avant 1300, dreg
au quatorziéme siécle, dreggys au quinziéme siécle, drags au seiziéme
siécle, dreggs au dix-septiéme siécle; l’étymologie serait le norois, par
exemple, le suédois drdgg ou l’islandais dregg (qui est donné au pluriel

52. Le mot /ie, de sens apparenté, parait remonter également a un prototype gaulois.

53. S. Bugge, Romania, m1 (1874), 147, ne peut pas identifier dréche avec drague; il tire
dréche de \’ancien francique drastja, duquel il rapproche le vieux slave droStija, et il raméne
drague au vicil islandais dregg (vieux prussien dragios, anglais dregs).

LES DERIVES FRANCAIS DU TYPE AEDIFICARE 341

dreggiar). Autrement dit l'anglais dreg, qui a une parenté au moins
sémantique avec rack, peut remonter 4 un mot tel que le vieil islandais
dregg et le francais dréche, par Vintermédiaire d’une étymologie hy-
pothétique du latin vulgaire, peut remonter également 4 un mot tel
que le vieil islandais dregg.** Ce paralléle étymologique vient renforcer
les autres conclusions d’ordre phonétique et lexicologique. Le plus
ancien exemple de cette famille de mots frangais est drejier au onziéme
siécle. Le point de départ serait alors un type *drasicare.*®

Que l’étymologie de rejier et des mots similaires soit *drasicare
ou non, je ne réussis pas a établir une parenté étymologique ou sé-
mantique entre rejier et les dérivés acceptés de reaedificare. On ne con-
nait qu’une formation composée de ce type en judéo-francais et c’est
avec le préfixe ad: *adsanctificare >asseintijer, *adbonificare > abonijer,
*advivificare >avijer. A ma connaissance jamais en judéo-frangais la
terminaison -ficare n’a abouti a -chier parmi les nombreux exemples
des verbes frotigier, torigier, saintijer, bonigier, avijer, eigier et de leurs
composés. Ces verbes sont exclusivement judéo-frangais dans toutes
leurs formations; dans aucun texte ¢igier, aigier n’a pu se transformer
en reichier par Yadjonction d’un préfixe. On n’a pas relevé reaedificare
avec l’acception “soutirer” en latin. Vu que les dérivés de aedificare
en judéo-fran¢gais empruntent au latin les nuances de “batir” ou de
“labourer,” on s’attendrait 4 ce que des dérivés de reaedificare y sig-
nifient soit “rebatir”’ soit “labourer de nouveau.” Bref, M. Livingston
estime qu'il est facile d’établir un rapprochement sémantique entre
lidée de “‘rebatir dans une maison ou sur un champ” et celle de “sou-
tirer le vin d’un tonneau dans un autre de maniére 4 laisser la lie au
fond du premier.” Est-il donc tellement hasardeux d’établir un rap-
prochement sémantique entre l’idée de “vin tiré ou exprimé du marc”
et “vin soutiré ou dégagé de la lie?”

Rapuaet Levy

Louisiana State University
» 54. Dans son dictionnaire étymologique Skeat fait dériver le nom dregg du verbe draga
"SS. Je remarque que Meyer-Liibke, art. 2649 *derigere, range ensemble drege “arranger,
réparer, raccommoder” et drege “‘verser, frelater, falsifier (en parlant de vin).”” Peut-on relier
ce mot roumain au judéo-frangais drejier? Je pose la question d’autant plus volontiers que

G. I. Ascoli (Arch. glot. ital., vu, 1883, 558) a mis l’italien dialectal derscher en rapport avec
lallemand suisse richten.

REVIEWS

Expressions of Religious Thought and Feeling in the Chansons de Geste. By Sister
Marianna Gildea, R.S.M. Washington, D. C., The Catholic University of
America Press, 1943. Pp. xviii+297.

Sister Marianna Gildea has undertaken to examine the popular religious mind
of the French people in the 12th and 13th centuries. She feels that this may best
be done by “an analysis of the popular religious terms in the vernacular litera-
ture, intelligible and familiar to the people” (page 11). Within this literary field
the chansons de geste have been selected as a basis for study, because “in their
half-learned situations [sic] they were more ‘popular’ than any other type of
literature in the Old French classical period” (page vii). One may object that
by the 13th century the chansons de geste had become highly formalized and that
the sentiments expressed in the pseudo-historical situations they depict proba-
bly reflect spontaneous popular ideas and feelings less faithfully than do the
fabliaux, farces and possibly even lyric poetry and romances.

The psychological analysis of religious vocabulary is based on what the au-
thor calls the “Feldforschung” method of Trier and Bechtoldt as far as, lin-
guistic method is concerned, and on Rudolph Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, as far
as religious psychology is under investigation.

The introductory chapter on aim and method lays great stress on novelty
which for this reviewer amounts merely to an investigation of psychological
attitudes through the vocabulary of a given linguistic “area,” religion, intelli-
gence, country, nature etc. On the religious side the method is simply the use of
Otto’s concept of the “numinous,”’ the consideration of religion under the dou-
ble aspects of conceptual and feeling elements, the division of these “feeling”
elements into the “tremendum”’ and the “‘fascinans” (these terms are repeated
constantly), and the use of such expressions as Kreatur-Gefiihl and A ffektzen-
trum.

Shorn of this terminology, the method provides no great originality. It does
analyze not only the definitions of the words examined but also their connota-
tions and overtones, and it does proclaim that there is an irrational or suprara-
tional aspect to religious concepts and attitudes, and that the latter include both
the response of fear (the tremendum) and that of love (the attracting or fasci-
nans). On the other hand, it is not axiomatic that the best way to study popular
psychology is through vocabulary. This is surely one legitimate approach, but
one that must be used with care, delicacy and insight.

Most of the conclusions of this book are endlessly repeated and rather wordy
laborings of the obvious, or at least of what is obvious to anyone reasonably
familiar with Catholic doctrine and medieval French literature.

Each of the main chapters is concluded by a twin summary of the conceptual
and feeling elements found in the words and texts under consideration. Apart

REVIEWS 343

from the terminology (Old French, Latin or German psychologico-metaphysi-
cal), these summaries are strongly reminiscent of the penny catechism. It is a
meager result of almost three hundred pages of analyses and tabulations to find
conclusions of which the following is a fair example: “The permanent union
which the Christian soul seeks with God is to be satisfied in paradis (or ciel)
which represents an abode of enduring happiness, peace and security . ..”
(page 279).

The difficulty is that the examination-of-vocabulary method must be em-
ployed with more penetration and the words under scrutiny must be considered
in the larger context of the entire situation in which they are presented in the
individual texts. The author of the present work merely piles up short passages,
of two or three lines usually, and bases her interpretations on this narrow view
of the word.

It is open to question whether, as the author claims, the examination of vo-
cabulary is the best method “to discover the popular religious conceptions in
mediaeval France” (page 11), but even if we accept the method, grave lacunae
are noticed in its application here. The author correctly notes that the abstract
term religion is not commonly employed, and that where the word occurs it
usually refers to the eremitic or monastic state (page 13), but she does not pre-
sent any adequate study of the word which was used to convey much of the
meaning of our word “religion,” that is, Loi. The very substitution is highly
significant. It is these underlying essentially and specifically medieval charac-
teristics of Catholic religious belief and practice that the author seems to miss:
the concept of religion as primarily Loi, the very frequency of religious expres-
sions in everyday life (quite taboo in polite society today), the attitude toward
other religions, the question of conversion, the emphasis on the corporate,
liturgical character of worship, the role of the layman in the church, the cult of
the saints, the relation between the temporal and the spiritual, etc. An analysis
of just one “good” chanson de geste, the Roland or the Chanson de Guillaume, for
example, by close study of characters, situations, motivations and reactions
would, I think, be more rewarding than this very painstaking and methodical
filleting of some seventy epics of the 12th and 13th centuries.

Jean Miusrant
Fordham University

The Life of Saint Dominic in Old French Verse. By Warren Francis Manning.
(Harvard Studies in Romance Languages, 20) Cambridge, Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1944. Pp. xiii+358.

The present life of St. Dominic is an adaptation and often a literal translation
of the Latin life written by Petrus Ferrandi some time between 1234 and 1239,
shortly after the death of the Saint in 1221. The translation itself was probably
made, as Professor Manning shows, between 1256 and 1259. There is obvi-
ously great interest in this account written and translated during the lifetime of

344 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

men who had known and who must have kept alive a very vigorous oral tradi-
tion of Saint Dominic’s “hauts faits et beaux dits,” to borrow a phrase from the
almost contemporary Joinville. Whether or not Petrus Ferrandi knew the
Saint personally, this life of Dominic written by a Dominican must have been
documented from eye-witness accounts and must have been subject to the
scrutiny and criticism of many intimates of the Saint.

The French text adds nothing new to the Latin life, but greatly expands it by
the development of dialogue and pious and often prolix commentary. Its style
is simple, direct and enthusiastic, but rather flat in expression and somewhat less
than mediocre in versification. Professor Manning’s edition is very careful and
thoroughly competent. His text is established on one (Arras 307) of the two
MSS known, with variants from the other (B.N. f. fr. 19531). Since both have
serious lacunae and are approximately contemporary and of almost equal qual-
ity, there was very little choice. The lacunae in the Arras MS are very much
more numerous, however, and on the basis of that very important criterium, it
might have been well to give the preference to the slightly later Paris MS, de-
spite its more numerous cases of faulty versification. The editor duly notes the
lines and folios lacking in his base MS, but he has obviously missed one instance
after 1. 3626 (bottom of A 198 v°). Line 3627 (which begins A 199 r°) does not
belong to the same incident as the preceding line (Manning’s paragraph 31,
Petrus Ferrandi’s 38), but to Petrus’ paragraph 40 (edited by F. Van Otroy,
S.J., in Analecta Bollandiana, xxx (1911), 73) which Manning says (page 20) is
not translated in the poem.

The editor’s study of the language of the author and of the two copyists is
very complete and thoroughly documented by reference to the standard man-
uals and specialized works. One may question whether such a lengthy and ex-
haustive analysis is warranted by the very ordinary nature of the language of
the texts concerned. The MSS both present the common Francian forms of the
13th century with a liberal admixture of the Picard forms which are so fre-
quently found in the literary language of the period that they can hardly be used
for precise localization at that time. The Paris MS shows the less generally
found Walloon breaking of tonic and pretonic open ¢. Manning finds Picard,
Norman and Francian forms in the language of the author and concludes from
this combination that the author belonged to the Beauvaisis. This is perhaps
taking a narrow view of the literary language of the 13th century; if all texts
presenting traits of these three dialects are to be located in the Beauvaisis, we
may be obliged to conclude that a great majority of 13th-century French texts
were written there. We do know, however, that many originally Norman and
Picard dialectal traits were very commonly used in the Ile de France and
throughout the North of France in that period.

The editor’s use of accent marks is somewhat irregular and confusing. He
writes dalés and adés, but apres without the accent. If he writes briément (prop-
erly, I think), why not also griété instead of grieté? Assés and ciés are sometimes
written with and sometimes without the accent.

REVIEWS 345

Most of Mr. Manning’s emendations of his base MS are well made, though
it may not have been necessary to write qu’il nos ensaint (line 2896) when the
MS reads qui n.e. This reading of the MS might have been maintained by punc-
tuating qu’i n. e. with the fairly common dropping of final / before an initial
consonant. Likewise the Ki of P in line 1983 might have been written ki (for
kil under the same conditions), instead of introducing the emendation ke. Nor
was there need of suppressing con (<quomodo, line 2900) in favor of com, par-
ticularly since the next word is je. On the other hand, sens (line 261), which
rhymes with Jehan, might well have been emended to sen, as the editor suggests
in his note to this line, although I do not agree with his suggestion that the form
without s may be due to analogy with nouns of the mmurs type. I see no reason
for rejecting the commonly accepted explanation of confusion between the
derivative of sensum with that of Germanic sin(n).

Despite these small criticisms, Mr. Manning is entitled to gratitude for hav-
ing prepared, and Archbishop John T. McNicholas, O.P., and the Harvard
University Press for having made possible the publication of this excellent edi-
tion of an interesting and important text.

Jean Misrani
Fordham University

Diderot’s Imagery. A Study of a Literary Personality. By Eric M. Steel. New

York, The Corporate Press, 1941. Pp. 269.

Mr. Steel’s study of Diderot’s imagery is a new illustration of a trend in liter-
ary criticism which has been revived in the last decennium. The exhaustive
treatment of Shakespeare’s imagery by Dr. C. Spurgeon seems to be the pio-
neering work of the new approach: the study of images. Mr. Steel relies on Dr.
Spurgeon’s work not only in several matters of method, but he explicitly ac-
cepts her main thesis, i.e. that the images an author uses give the best and most
direct insight into his interests, tastes and intentions, since they disclose the to-
tal range of his inner and outer experiences. This thesis is based on the as-
sumption that with regard to other aspects of their work—content as well as
form—authors are apt or likely to follow certain conventions (fashion, pro-
priety), to strike an attitude or to limit and simplify their expression for the
sake of rational and logical criteria. The image, on the contrary, reveals the
personal and permanent concern of an author; it has its root in his unconscious,
intuitive, creative activity and comes into being under the impulse of emotion or
inspiration.?

There is obviously much to be said on this conception of the image, a concep-
tion which seems to rate very highly the irrational and illogical elements of
artistic self-expression. But a review seems hardly the place to discuss the un-
derlying principles of such an approach. We must limit ourself to the specific

1. See Steel’s Introduction, and p. 208.

346 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

application, Diderot’s imagery, and can do this all the more since neither Dr.
Spurgeon nor Dr. Steel give a theory of the image. They make a number of
loosely connected assertions which are never brought into focus or submitted
to a close analysis. It must, however, be said that Dr. Steel is far more critical
than his model. He does not take his assumptions for granted and is therefore
generally careful in his conclusions, while Dr. Spurgeon sets out with the gay
admission that she neither knows nor cares to know what exactly an image is
and how the claim of its revelatory nature can be justified. She indulges in hap-
hazard conclusions and has as her only justification the crushing massiveness of
her stupendous card catalogue where a// the images in Shakespeare are collected
and classified. Dr. Steel is not guilty of such abuses. He seems aware of the pre-
carious character of his categories and of the lack of a reliable basis. Many ob-
jections which one is tempted to raise are already anticipated in his study. A
few instances: he states? that only the genuine, original image gives a clue to the
author’s personality; but he also recognizes the difficulty of defining an
“original” image.* He sets out to discover Diderot’s true nature and to solve
his contradictions by an analysis of images, and comes to the conclusion that
not only are there few poetic, genuine similes in Diderot, but that the Neveu de
Rameau and the other Contes—works which always have been considered as
giving a true picture of Diderot—have very few genuine images. He vacillates
between various interpretations of the term image, taking it sometimes in so
narrow a sense that the majority of Diderot’s images have to be excluded as
merely perfunctory, trite, logical or rhetorical; sometimes so large that almost
every concrete expression of an abstract idea is considered an image.‘

These uncertainties fortunately do not seriously affect the main part of Dr.
Steel’s book (chapters m-—vir) where Diderot’s images are classified corre-
sponding to their sources (literature, art, science, nature, society, etc.) and
studied in their significance. These chapters are a valuable contribution to our
knowledge of Diderot and will prove very useful for further research. The col-
lection of images is, of course, not complete, but it is sufficiently large for the
author’s purpose. There are many excellent observations on single aspects of
Diderot’s imagery, observations which attest that Dr. Steel is thoroughly
familiar with Diderot’s works and the main writings on Diderot. Again it is the
author’s frankness which deserves praise. He clearly sees that sometimes the
images do not reflect the range of Diderot’s interests. Far from concealing the
fact he explicitly states the incongruity and tries to explain it.

Less acceptable is the Conclusion on the Quality of Diderot’s Imagery. One
would expect an investigation of the réle and function of the image in the proc-
ess of Diderot’s self-expression, an inquiry into its place in the complete linguis-
tic pattern, or an analysis of the specific quality of the images and the conclu-
sions which can be derived from such an analysis. An image can be visible or
auditive, plastic or musical, emphasizing or attenuating, distinct or hazy,

2. Pp. 10, 214.

3. Pp. 44, 214.
4. E.g., pp. 13-14, 46-47, 28-29, Chap. m-—vm.

REVIEWS 347

blurred, apparent or remote, obvious or subtle, stable or mobile, etc., thus indi-
cating distinct faculties, motives and trends. Not only the subjects upon which
an author draws for his images, but also the themes which evoke and suggest an
image, are important. Dr. Steel simply distinguishes certain classes of images:
original, trite, poetical, logical, technical, rhetorical, and concludes that there
are but few poetic and genuine similes in Diderot’s works. Then he proceeds to
discuss at some length, on the basis of the “true image,”’ the problem of whether
or not Diderot was a poet. He discovers that Diderot, though having the apti-
tude and temperament of a poet, did not actualize his gifts. For this anomaly the
author adduces a number of extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. It seems to me that
here the deficiencies of Mr. Steel’s conception of the image lead to a wrong per-
spective. One has to decide first of all if one wants to take the notion of poet in a
narrow or in a broad sense. In the first case Diderot is no poet. But if one takes
it in a broad sense—and the author seems inclined to do so—Diderot’s works
show many poetic and artistic features. However, it is impossible to discuss the
question of “‘poet or no poet” or of the artistic quality of a work on the basis of
Mr. Steel’s notion of the “true” image.® It is very improbable that images are
less subject to conventions, fashions, or “attitudes” than other components of
the medium of self-expression. Moreover I do not see why a logical or rhetori-
cal image should not reveal an author’s taste, preferences and personality. The
overrating of the “original,” the “poetic,” the “unconscious,” the opinion that
truth appears only in the white heat of emotional inspiration, are part of the
“dangerous” heritage of romanticism. The author, intent only on the obvious
simile, excludes from his considerations and from the discussion of Diderot’s
artistry the Neveu de Rameau and the other Contes. He does not seem to notice
how much metaphor is involved not only in the “direct” image—of which, as he
says himself, there is abundance in the Contes—but also in the use of certain
words. I will concede that one can eliminate these instances of imagery from a
study of the “genuine” image, but one cannot exclude them from the discussion
of Diderot’s poetic gifts. Does the art of creating a vivid portrait of the Neveu,
does the dramatic reproduction in words of his gestures, movements, his panto-
mime, does the lively, suggestive description of the dinner of the pamphletists
and parasites at the rich man’s table attest less inspiration, minor poetic facul-
ties, less artistic sensibility, less creative talent than a metaphor? Are these din-
ners and so many other scenes in Diderot’s Contes, are the cris de nature, the mots
de caractére not also visual, pictorial images—the term taken in a broad sense?
How can we evaluate the beauty of unadorned style, if the ornament of imagery
is the only criterium of poetic creation, of the essential gift of imagination and
the clue par excellence to a writer’s personality? Dr. Steel accumulates reasons in
order to explain why Diderot did not develop his poetic gifts; but these gifts
are there, fully realized and manifested in Saunderson’s vision, in the prodigious
imagination of the Réve de D’ Alembert, in the art of recreating a painting in
words. The scientific or logical tint of an image does not necessarily make it
prosaic. There is only one criterium of an author’s imagery: does he or does he

5. I may add that in my opinion no study of images alone will solve this question.

348 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

not necessarily think and express himself in images? Diderot’s imagination was
so forceful that he saw images and developed his ideas in images even when he
reflected on the origin and growth of organic life.

Mr. Steel’s insight into the many problems connected with his study, as well
as his numerous excellent observations on Diderot’s similes in the course of his
de facto analysis are an important and very valuable step towards an investiga-
tion of Diderot’s imagery, which ought to be conducted on a larger scale and
from a broader point of view and which, above all, ought to be linked with the
study of all the components of the medium of Diderot’s self-expression.

HeErBert DIECKMANN
Washington University

Five French Negro Authors. By Mercer Coox. Washington, D. C., The Asso-
ciated Publishers, Inc., 1943. Pp. 164.

This is the latest and most ambitious of a series of publications originating
in Dr. Cook’s long interest in the role played by the Negro in French Litera-
ture. After intensive study in Paris and the West Indies he has selected five
authors from a long list of possible choices. The lives and works of these five
cover a period which extends from the years immediately preceding the French
Revolution to the Second World War. The result is a book which provides an
interesting and informative introduction to men who, with the exception of
Dumas pére, are virtually unknown on this side of the Atlantic. In addition, the
book casts considerable light upon the history of the Negro problem in France,
or more accurately, in the French colonies during the past century and a half.

There is Julien Raimond, mulatto native of Saint Domingue, who went to
Paris in 1783 to campaign for the rights of the free men of color. Dr. Cook
pitilessly reveals that Raimond was no unselfish crusader for the rights of all
men. We are told that in the first of his petitions to the National Assembly he
wrote “. . . there must be, I say, but two classes in that land [Haiti], the free
and the enslaved even if it were only to restrain the latter more effectively.”
Later, however, the influence of men like Lafayette, Condorcet, Brissot and
Grégoire led him to accept the principle of abolition as a prerequisite to gain-
ing his objective. For twenty years he campaigned tirelessly, publishing in-
numerable pamphlets and articles.

Cyrille-Charles-Auguste Bissette of Martinique is presented with equally
pitiless accuracy. Publisher of the Revue des Colonies, the first French Negro
periodical, an author of innumerable pamphlets and brochures, he too began as
an ardent advocate of the cause of the free men of color. Unfortunately he
allowed jealously of Victor Schoelcher, the French Abraham Lincoln, to drive
him to join forces with reactionary elements which were devoted to opposing
the objectives for which he originally fought.

The chapter on Dumas pére tells a familiar story which gains novelty through

being approached from the standpoint of his attitude toward and treatment of
the Negro problem.

REVIEWS 349

The fourth chapter, on Auguste Lacaussade, is perhaps the best. Almost
reverently Dr. Cook tells the story of this mulatto native of the Ile de la
Réunion in whom were combined a real talent for poetry, an ardent love of
liberty and a sensitive soul. Careful and thorough documentation sustains Dr.
Cook’s favorable opinion of this author.

The book closes with a treatment of the life and works of René Maran which
does not quite maintain the high standard of the greater portion of the book. In
all fairness, however, this is probably as much the fault of the subject as the
writer. The difficulty of obtaining a true perspective in viewing a contemporary
may account for the somewhat disjointed impression received from this final
chapter.

Five French Negro Authors may be recommended to scholars and laymen
alike. The student of French Literature will be particularly interested in Dr.
Cook’s analysis of the works of Lacaussade and Maran. For the layman the
lively readable style of the writer and the eventful lives of the men treated
will make the book both absorbing and informative.

Luoyp B. Stuart
Clark College
Atlanta, Georgia

Clowns and Angels: Studies in Modern French Literature. By Wavtace Fow re.
New York, Sheed and Ward, 1943. Pp. 162.

“Faith gives to some men,” writes Mr. Fowlie (page 122), “a boldness
which is very capable of irritating other men.”” Mr. Fowlie’s judgments of
literature proceed from his Roman Catholic faith; we may accept his invita-
tion to believe that his boldness comes from the same source. This review
will furnish some evidence to corroborate the statement above quoted, and
would be miserably unfair except in a periodical whose readers are profession-
ally bound to read his book no matter what the reviewers say. His book m erits
reading; it is the result of close study and much thought, and the subject is of
pressing importance; to discourage possible readers would be rank injustice.
This being said, however, the facts remain that Mr. Fowlie means to be
provocative, and that in this sense his effort is eminently successful.

His subject is what he calls (page 8) “the rehabilitation of certain constant
themes and values in French culture.’’ These themes involve “the whole psy-
chological and religious problem of ‘man the artist,’ which has become for our
century the most tenacious of literary themes” (page 10). The business of the
critic, as Mr. Fowlie sees it (page 8) is “[to make] a metaphysical plunge into
the past for the light of the future . . . [the] rediscovery of man’s permanent
heritage and dignity.” It will be noted that these topics are those which, some
years ago, preoccupied the New Humanists, and that the quality of the boldness
which Mr. Fowlie mentions is not entirely unfamiliar. And as with the New
Humanists, Mr. Fowlie’s enterprise carries him into the study of contemporary
French literature. “In contemporary French literature we have examples of

350 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

construction which, in terms of art, is . . . love of form, and this construction
is applied to themes which are the eternal ones of man as man, and man as artist.
The greatest works of our time testify to these standards” (page 18). This na-
turally leads him to studies of Gide, Mauriac, Romains, Proust, Malraux,
Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Claudel, with side excursions for purposes of com-
parison which take him as far afield as Joyce, Shakespeare, Kaffka and
Sophocles. In all these his aim is to isolate and define the values he is seeking,
while making constant reference to the subjects which inevitably arise in such
a study—the nature of tragedy and of heroism, including the heroism of the
artists. In such a book it is natural that elucidations and interpretations should
give way to judgments, and that the judgments should be, as has been said so
often of Massis’ famous book, more in the nature of executions.

Among the novelists, Mauriac escapes Mr. Fowlie relatively unscathed. The
familiar criticism, that for a Catholic novelist Mauriac is inordinately fond of
dissecting the anatomy of sin, is met by the argument that “‘it is not the power
of sin which he exalts in his writings but rather the dignity which an awareness
of sin confers upon a human being”’ (page 58). Related to this awareness, Mr.
Fowlie believes, is Mauriac’s ability to write the truly tragic novel. Of Proust,
on the other hand, he has less good to say. Proust’s great effort was the prepara-
tion of an elaborate setting for tragedy. The tragedy itself never came off (page
79). Gide fares better than Proust: Mr Fowlie finds heroism in Gide’s life-long
spiritual struggle, and is much less perturbed than other Catholic critics have
been by the suspicion that Gide returns to wrestle with the angel out of a love
of wrestling as a form of exercise. Romains and Malraux he regards as signifi-
cant figures but hardly of the stature of Gide, Mauriac or Proust.

Mr. Fowlie ranks Claudel with Dante and Shakespeare (page 153), and sees
him as the culmination of a Christian renascence in poetry which began with
Baudelaire and was passed down through Rimbaud. Baudelaire is “the first who
states in a profound way the problem of existence”’ (page 115). Rimbaud is the
poet-mystic whose growing aptitude in mysticism at length rendered poetry
unnecessary to him.

The critic’s standards of evaluation are based on his religious beliefs. He is
thus consistent in telling us that France has enjoyed “ten centuries of Chris-
tianity and ten centuries of intellectual freedom” (page 19) even though his
reader may wonder why the 18th century ever bothered to intervene be-
tween the 17thand 19th. And we can hardly argue against such propositions
as these: “vigor in art must come from some mystical nourishment whose
source is not poisoned” (page 104); and “all great poetry is by definition
primitive because poets have never ceased being amazed at the universe”
(page 115) even though this second ukase seems rather rough on poets like
Milton and Donne, not to say Dante and Baudelaire. But at times one must
protest.

“The heroes of Joyce [writes Mr. Fowlie] . . . have forgotten, in the mo-
notony of their lives, the ancient struggle between good and evil” (page 54).
In view of the fact that critics have called Ulysses the most searching treatment

REVIEWS 351

of the problem of good and evil since the Book of Job, one simply wonders what
Mr. Fowlie is talking about.

“Rimbaud’s much discussed flight from literature and his abstinence from the
written word are merely the result of the weighted sadness most artists have
felt upon realization of art’s innate and unsatisfactory approximations” (page
140). Not even Miss Enid Starkie, who is herself at times almost unbearably
sure of what motives lay, hidden and unrecorded, behind Rimbaud’s conduct,
has ventured so summary an explanation.

“Picasso’s energy also upsets the world and what remains on the finished
picture is a delirious kind of joy, so intense that it ends by becoming the artist’s
personality” (page 129). I am here trying to remember what sort of joy, or
delight in the world, lies behind the Guernica mural.

“Les Fleurs du mal, as truly as the Divine Comedy and with greater personal
anguish than the poem of Dante . . .”” (page 103). It is very hard to see how
Mr. Fowlie or anyone else can know that Dante’s anguish, which has him
swooning recurrently through the whole Jnferno, is not as intensely personal as
that of Baudelaire or any other poet who ever lived.

“His mother . . . in Hamlet’s case represented the hero’s world”’ (page 87).
Would it not be just as true to say that Hamlet’s world was represented by
Osric, Claudius, Laertes, Rosencranz, Fortinbras, the Polack, or Horatio?
Alas, poor Gertrude. . . .

This game of heckling the author could be continued almost indefinitely. I
have beside me some fifty additional references to places in his work which are
wide open to attack. Possibly in many instances he is perfectly right in saying
what he does.! But Mr. Fowlie gives us these opinions as though they were
axiomatic, without informing us of his reason for holding them. It is quite pos-
sible, for instance, that he believes that Gertrude’s posting to incestuous sheets
symbolizes the topsy-turvy conduct of a Denmark which has begun to rot. The
theory is not untenable, even though not completely invulnerable. But if this
was what he meant, why not have said so?

Those who delight in following M. Maritain’s humbly painstaking efforts
to make clear the last detail of his most minute judgments are aware that Catho-
lic critics do not have necessarily to adopt a magisterial attitude. Had Mr.
Fowlie followed M. Maritain’s example he would certainly have done his
book no harm, and he would not have run the risk of alienating his readers.
This would have been especially desirable in his case since, by the mere fact of
publishing his book in a time like this, he was serving not only the cause of his
faith but also the cause of France.

W. M. Fronock
Columbia University
(Now in United States Naval Reserve)
1. Not, however, in the instance where he affirms categorically that Gide was unfamiliar

with Nietzsche at the time of writing L’ Immoraliste. Cf. Bluma-Renée Lang, “André Gide et
Nietzsche: Etude chronologique,”’ RR, xxxiv (April 1943), 139.

BOOKS RECEIVED

Atkins, J.W. H., English Literary Criticism, The Medieval Phase. Cambridge,
England, At the University Press, 1943. Pp. ix+-211.

Beckerlegge, Oliver A., editor. Le Secré de Secrez by Pierre d’Abernun of
Fetcham from the Unique Manuscript B. N. f. fr. 25407. Oxford, published
for the Anglo-Norman Text Society by Basil Blackwell, 1944. Pp. lviii+-94.

Bruchesi, Jean, Le Chemin des écoliers. Montreal, Editions Bernard Valiquette,
1944, Pp. 151.

Chevalier, Michel, Lettres sur ? Amérique du Nord. Extraits. Avec une introduc-
tion par Robert G. Mahieu. Princeton, Princeton University Press for Insti-
tut Frangais de Washington, 1944. Pp. xx+51.

Claudel, Paul, L’annonce faite 4 Marie. Mystére en quatre actes et un prologue.
Edited by A. Lytton Sells and C. M. Girdlestone. Cambridge, England,
At the University Press, 1943. Pp. 128.

Creighton, Andrew J., Anticlaudien. A thirteenth-century French adaptation of the
Anticlaudianus of Alain de Lille, by Ellebaut. Edited for the first time, with
Introduction, Commentary, and Glossary. (A Dissertation, The Catholic
University of America). Washington, D. C., The Catholic University of
America Press, Inc., 1944. Pp. vi+-172.

Dick, Hugh G., Editor, Albumazar: A Comedy (1615) by Thomas Tomkis.
(University of California Publications in English, Vol. 13). Berkeley and
Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1944. Pp. viii+217.

Fernand-Laurent, J. C., Gallic Charter: Foundations of Tomorrow’ s France. Bos-
ton, Little, Brown and Co., 1944. Pp. 280.

Fisch, Max Harold and Thomas Goddard Bergin, The Autobiography of
Giambattista Vico. Translated from the Italian. Ithaca, N. Y., Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1944. Pp. viii+-240.

Gomez, Ermilo Abreu, Lecciones de Literatura Espattola. Mexico, Revista Musi-
cal Mexicana, 1944. Pp. 127.

Grillo, Giacomo, Poets at the Court of Ferrara Ariosto, Tasso and Guarini, with a
chapter on Michelangelo. Boston, The Excelsior, Inc., 1943.

Hugo, Victor, Les Feuilles d’ Automne. Edited by L. Bisson. Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1944. Pp. xxiv+126.

Kirschenbaum, Leo, Enrique Gaspar and the Social Drama in Spain. (University
of California Publications in Modern Philology, Volume 25, No. 4). Berke-
ley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1944. Pp. vii+317-
424.

Lancaster, Charles Maxwell, John G. Frank, and Carl Hammer, Two Moods
of Minnesong. An Adaptation into English Verse of Gottfried von Strass-
burg’s First Part of Tristan and Isolde and of Hartmann von Aue’s Complete
Poem of Hapless Henry. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 1944.

BOOKS RECEIVED 353

Laughring, Sister Mary Fidelia, Juan Pablo Forner as a Critic. Washington,
D. C., The Catholic University of America Press, 1943. Pp. 200.

Le Roy, Loys, De la vicissitude ou variété des choses en I’ Univers. Selections with
an introduction by Blanchard W. Bates. Princeton Texts in Literature and
the History of Thought. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1944. Pp.
xvii+ 54.

Marie de France, Lais. Edited by A. Ewert. Oxford, England, Basil Blackwell,
1944. Pp. xxxi+220.

Miscellania Fabra: Recull de Treballs de Lingiitstica catalana i Romanica. Dedicats
a Pompeu Fabra. Buenos Aires, Impremta i Casa Editora “Coni,” 1943. Pp.
vii+400.

Montesquieu, Extraits sur la loi, la liberté et le gouvernement anglais. With an in-
troductory essay by Roger B. Oake. Princeton Texts in Literature and the
History of Thought. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1944. Pp. xiii
+46.

Navarro, Tomas, Manual de Entonacién Espanola. New York, Hispanic Insti-
tute in the United States, 1944. Pp. 306.

Nykl, A. R., Troubadour Studies. A critical survey of recent books published in this
field. Cambridge, Mass., 1944. Pp. 20.

Olmsted, Richard Hubbell, E/ Conde don Pero Vélez y don Sancho el Deseado.
Comedia en tres actos de Luis Vélez de Guevara. Edicién critica. Minneapo-
lis, The University of Minnesota Press, 1944. Pp. viii+ 189.

Pace, Antonio, Antonio Pucci, Il Contrasto delle Donne. A critical edition with in-
troduction and notes. Menasha, Wisconsin, George Banta Publishing Co.,
1944. Pp. 111.

Pane, Remigio Ugo, English Translations from the Spanish, 1484-1943. A Bib-
liography. (Rutgers University Studies in Spanish, No. 2). New Brunswick,
Rutgers University Press, 1944. Pp. vi+218.

Peyre, Henri, Writers and Their Critics: A Study of Misunderstanding. Ithaca,
New York, Cornell University Press, 1944. Pp. xii+340.

Podgurski, Joseph C., The Evolution of Latin Finis in Old French. An Abridg-
ment (of a dissertation). New York, New York University, 1944. Pp. 19.
Price, Lawrence Marsden, The Vogue of Marmontel on the German Stage. (Uni-
versity of California Publications in Modern Philology, Volume 27, No. 2).
Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1944. Pp.27-

123.

Renan, Ernest, Les Sciences de la nature et les sciences historiques (Lettre 4 Marcel-
lin Berthelot) and L’ Avenir de la science (Chapitres 1 et xvt). With an intro-
duction by Ira O. Wade. Princeton Texts in Literature and the History of
Thought. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1944. Pp. xxi+43.

Rider, Fremont, The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library. New York,
Hadham Press, 1944. Pp. xiii+-236.

Spitzer, Leo, L’amour lointain de Jaufré Rudel et le sens de la poésie des trouba-
dours. (University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and

354 THE ROMANIC REVIEW

Literature. No. 5). Chapel Hill, N. C., University of North Carolina Press,
1944. Pp. 74.

Taine, H., Introduction a T histoire de la littérature anglaise, avec des remarques
préliminaires par Gilbert Chinard. Princeton Texts in Literature and the
History of Thought. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1944. Pp. xix
+29.

Vigny. Introduction et notes par Fernand Baldensperger. Montreal, Editions de
l Arbre, 1944. Pp. 191.

Whitfield, J. H., Petrarch and the Renascence. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1943. Pp.
170.

Volle, Francis, Fitz-James O’ Brien: A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-Fifties.
(Series B. Studies in the Humanities, Vol. 2, No. 2). Boulder, Colorado, Uni-
versity of Colorado Studies, 1944. Pp. xi+ 309.

TEXT-BOOKS

Agard, Frederick B., Hélio Lobo, and Raymond S.Willis, Jr., Brazilian Portu-
guese from Thought to Word. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1944.
Pp. xvii+277.

Besso, H. V., and L. Clark Keating, Conversational French. New York, Hast-

’ ings House, 1944. Pp. xvii+186.

Eoff, Sherman H., and Paul C. King, Spanish American Short Stories. New York,
The Macmillan Co., 1944. Pp. xvii+204.

Gabriel, Miguel, Reir y Aprender. A Basic Book for Spanish Beginners. New
York, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1944. Pp. 200.

Mansilla, Lucio V., Una excursién a los indios ranqueles. Edited by Otis H.
Green. New York, Henry Holt and Co., 1944. Pp. 225.

Pereira, Octavio Mendez, Balboa. Edited with Introduction and Notes by
Everett W. Hesse. New York, American Book Co., 1944. Pp. xiv-+254.

VOLUME XxXXV:

AUTHOR INDEX

Bédé, Jean-Albert, Clothes and Character: The
Function of Dress in Balzac by H. T. Gar-
rett, 88

Bond, Donald F., Anglo-French and Franco-
American Studies, 1943, 186-202

Brugmans, Henri L., A Study of the Tragoe-
diae Sacrae of Father Caussin (1583-165 1)
by G. D. Hocking, 255-256

Cohen, Rubin, New York University Index to
Early American Periodical Literature, 1728-
1870. No. 5. French Fiction compiled by
A. L. Rabinovitz, 267-269

Corbaté, Hermenegildo, Feijéo: A Liberal
in Eighteenth-Century Spain, 147-155

Corrigan, Beatrice, Henri-Emile Chevalier
and His Novels of North America, 220-
231

Czoniczer, Mme Gabriel, Marcel Proust ou
Fernand Gregh? A propos de “‘Mystéres,”
232-234

Dean, Ruth J., Vstoire de la Passion: B.N.
MS fr. 821 by E. A. Wright, 252-254

Delattre, André, Dix lettres inédites de
Montesquieu, 19-27

Dieckmann, H., La Tradition littéraire des
Idéologues by E. Cailliet, 256-262

, Diderot’s Imagery. A Study of a
Literary Personality by E. M. Stee'. 345-
348

Evans, D. O., Alfred de Vigny and Positiv-
ism, 288-298

Famadas, José, The Indian in Brazilian Litera-
ture by D. M. Driver, 88-91

Frame, Donald M., Alexandre Vinet and
Poetry, 116-124

Frank, Grace, Representative Medieval and
Tudor Plays translated and edited by
H. W. Wells and R. S. Loomis, 254-255

Frohock, W. M., Clowns and Angels: Studies
in Modern French Literature by W. Fowlie,
349-351

Guiton, Jean, Ov en est le débat sur la re-
ligion de Montaigne, 98-115

Ham, Edward B., Alain Chartier: His Work
and Reputation by E. J. Hoffman, 84-85

Hatcher, Anna Granville, Il me prend le
bras vs. il prend mon bras, 156-164

Hatzfeld, H. A., Le origini delle canzoni di
gesta. Teorie e discussioni by 1 Siciliano;

Sulla lirica romanza delle origini by G. Er-
rante, 165-171

Hazard, Paul, Pour Que Vive L’Ame de La
France, 273-276

Jackson, Joseph F., L’ Influence des littératures
antiques sur la littérature francaise moderne.
Etat des travaux by H. Peyre, 178-179

Lang, B. Renée, André Gide and the Crisis of
Modern Thought by K. Mann, 179-181

Lang, Paul H., Beethoven in France. The
Growth of an Idea by L. Schrade, 73-82

Levy, Raphael, Les Dérivés francais du type
aedificare, 324-341

Loomis, Roger Sherman, The Origin of the
Grail Legend by A. C. L. Brown, 82-84

Malkiel, Yakov, Three Spanish-Portuguese
Etymologies, 307-323

March, Harold, The Proustian Manner, 52-
72

Marix-Spire, Thérése, Vicissitudes d'un
opéra-comique: La Mare au diable, de
George Sand et de Pauline Viardot,
d’aprés des documents inédits, 125-146

Messiéres, René de, Réplique (A Marcel
Proust ou Fernand Gregh? A propos de
““Mystéres’’), 234-237

Misrahi, Jean, Expressions of Religious
Thought and Feeling in the Chansons de
Geste by Sister Marianna Gildea, 342-343

, The Life of Saint Dominic in Old

French Verse by W. F. Manning, 343-345

Morehouse, A. R., Voltaire and Beccaria as
Reformers of Criminal Law by M. T.
Maestro, 171-175

Nitze, William, Communication, 251

Peyre, Henri, Women Poets of the Twentieth
Century in France. A Critical Biography by
C. B. Cooper, 264-266

Picard, Roger, La Poésie romantique, la sci-
ence et la révolution industrielle, 28-42

Rhodes, S. A., Gérard de Nerval’s Unfin-
ished Novel, 299-306

Seznec, Jean, L’Alain Chartier de Sainte-
Beuve, 203-219

Spitzer, Leo, L’Etymologie d’un ‘cri de
Paris,’ 244-250

Stoll, Elmer Edgar, Moliére and Shakespeare,
3-18

356

THE ROMANIC REVIEW

Stuart, Lloyd B., Five French Negro Authors
by M. Cook, 348-349
The Editors, Arthur Livingston (1883-
1944). 97
, Paul Hazard (1878-1944), 185
Torrey, Norman L., The Growth of Dide-
rot’s Fame in France from 1784-1875 by
M. L. Charles, 86-88
, The Forgotten Hume: Le bon David
by E. C. Mossner, 175-176

VOLUME XxXXxXV:

Balzac, Honoré de, 88

Beethoven, Louis Van, 73-82

Bibliographies, 186-202, 267-269

Brown, Arthur C. L., The Origin of the Grail
Legend (review), 82-84

Cailliet, Emile, La Tradition littéraire des Idé-
ologues (review), 256-262.

Carco, Francis, Verlaine (review), 262-263

Cazotte, Jacques, 176-178

Chansons de Geste, 342-343

Charles, Mary Lane, The Growth of Dide-
rot’s Fame in France from 1784-1875 (re-
view), 86-88

Chartier, Alain, 84-85, 203-219

Chevalier, Henri-Emile, 220-231

ComParRATIVE LITERATURE

Bond (Donald F.), Anglo-French and
Franco-American Studies, 1943, 186-
202

Cohen (Rubin), New York University In-
dex to Early American Periodical Litera-
ture, 1728-1870. No. 5. French Fiction
compiled by A. L. Rabinovitz, 267-269

Jackson (Joseph F.), L’Influence des lit-
tératures antiques sur la littérature fran-
aise moderne. Etat des travaux by H.
Peyre, 178-179

Stoll (Elmer Edgar), Moliére and Shake-
speare, 3-18

Torrey (Norman L.), The Forgotten Hume:
Le bon David by E. C. Mossner, 175-
176

Woodbridge (Benjamin M.), Poets and
Pessimism: Vigny, Housman et Alii,
43-51

Cook, Mercer, Five French Negro Authors

(review), 348-349

Cooper, Clarissa Burnham, Women Poets of

, Jacques Cazotte by E. P. Shaw, 176-

178

Vittorini, D., Nota su L’Infinito di Giacomo
Leopardi, 238-243

Walker, Eleanor M., Towards an Under-
standing of Diderot’s Esthetic Theory,
277-287

Weiner, S.S., Verlaine by F. Carco, 262-263

Woodbridge, Benjamin M., Poets and Pessi-
mism: Vigny, Housman et Alii, 43-51

SUBJECT INDEX

the Twentieth Century in France. A Critical
Biography (review), 264-266

Diderot, Denis, 86-88
Driver, David Miller, The Indian in Brazilian
Literature (review) , 88-91

Errante, Guido, Sulla lirica romanza delle orig-
ini (review), 165-171

Feij6o, Benito, 147-155

Fowlie, Wallace, Clowns and Angels: Studies
in Modern French Literature (review) , 349-
351

Frencu LireERATURE—
MEDIEVAL

Dean (Ruth J.), Vstoire de la Passion: B.N.
MSfr. 821 by E. A. Wright, 252-254
Frank (Grace), Representative Medieval
and Tudor Plays translated and edited by
H. W. Wells and R. S. Loomis, 254-
255

Ham (Edward B.), Alain Chartier: His
Work and Reputation by E. J. Hoffman,
84-85

Hatzfeld (H. A.), Le origini delle canzoni di
gesta. Teorie ¢ discussioni by 1. Siciliano;
Sulla lirica romanza delle origini by
G. Errante, 165-171

Loomis (Roger Sherman), The Origin of
the Grail Legend by A. C. L. Brown,
82-84

Misrahi (Jean), Expressions of Religious
Thought and Feeling in the Chansons de
Geste by Sister Marianna Gildea, 342-
343

, The Life of Saint Dominic in Old

French Verse by W. F. Manning, 343-
345

VOLUME XXxXV:

SUBJECT INDEX

357

Frencu LiteraturRE—
XVI. CENTURY

Guiton (Jean), Ou en est le débat sur la re-
ligion de Montaigne, 98-115

Frencu LireratuRE—
XVII. CENTURY

Brugmans (Henri L.), A Study of the Tra-
goediae Sacrae of Father Caussin (1583-
1651) by G. D. Hocking, 255-256

Frencu LireraturE—
XVIII. CENTURY

Delattre (André), Dix lettres inédites de
Montesquieu, 19-27

Dieckmann (Herbert), Diderot’s Imagery.
A Study of a Literary Personality by
E. M. Steel, 345-348

Morehouse (A. R.), Voltaire and Beccaria
as Reformers of Criminal Law by M. T.
Maestro, 171-175

Torrey (Norman L.), The Growth of
Diderot’s Fame in France from 1784-
1875 by M.L. Charles, 86-88

, Jacques Cazotte by E. P. Shaw,

176-178

Walker (Eleanor M.), Towards an Un-
derstanding of Diderot’s Esthetic
Theory, 277-287

Frencu LireratuRE—
XIX. CENTURY

Bédé (Jean-Albert), Clothes and Character:
The Function of Dress in Balzac by
H. T. Garrett, 88

Corrigan (Beatrice), Henri-Emile Cheva-
lier and His Novels of North America,
220-231

Evans (D. O.), Alfred de Vigny and
Positivism, 288-298

Frame (Donald M.), Alexandre Vinet and
Poetry, 116-124

Lang (Paul H.), Beethoven in France. The
Growth of an Idea by L. Schrade, 73-82

Marix-Spire (Thérése), Vicissitudes d’un
opéra-comique: La Mare au diable de
George Sand et de Pauline Viardot,
d’aprés des documents inédits, 125-146

Picard (Roger), La Poésie romantique, la
science et la révolution industrielle, 28-
42

Rhodes (S. A.), Gérard de Nerval’s Un-
finished Novel, 299-306

Seznec (Jean), L’ Alain Chartier de Sainte-
Beuve, 203-219

Weiner (S.S.), Verlaine by F. Carco, 262-
263

Frencu LireraTuRE—
XX. CENTURY

Czoniczer (Mme Gabriel), Marcel Proust
ou Fernand Gregh? A propos de ““Mys-
téres,”” 232-234

Hazard (Paul), Pour Que Vive L’Ame
de la France, 273-276

Lang (B. Renée), André Gide and the Crisis
of Modern Thought by K. Mann, 179-
181

March (Harold), The Proustian Manner,
§2-72

Messiéres (René de), Réplique (A Mar-
cel Proust ou Fernand Gregh? A propos
de ““Mystéres”’), 234-237

Peyre (Henri), Women Poets of the Twenti-
eth Century in France. A Critical Biogra-
phy by C. B. Cooper, 264-266

Frencu LireratuRE—
GENERAL STUDIES

Dieckmann (H.), La Tradition littéraire des
Idéologues by E. Cailliet, 256-262

Frohock (W. M.), Clowns and Angels:
Studies in Modern French Literature by
W. Fowlie, 349-351

Stuart (Lloyd B.), Five French Negro Au-
thors by M. Cook, 348-349

Garrett, Helen T., Clothes and Character:
The Function of Dress in Balzac (review),
88

Gide, André, 179-181

Gildea, Sister Marianna, Expressions of Re-
ligious Thought and Feeling in the Chansons
de Geste (review) , 342-343

Grail Legend, The, 82-84, 251

Gregh, Fernand, 232-237

Hocking, George Drew, A Study of the
Tragoediae Sacrae of Father Caussin
(1583-1651) (review), 255-256

Hoffman, Edward J., Alain Chartier: His
Work and Reputation (review) , 84-85

Housman, A. E., 43-51

358

THE ROMANIC REVIEW

Hume, David, 175-176
Infinito, L’, 238-243

ITALIAN LITERATURE

Vittorini (D.), Nota su L’Infinito di Gia-
como Leopardi, 2 38-243

Leconte de Lisle, Charles, 43-51
Leopardi, Giacomo, 43-5 1, 238-243

LincuIstTics

Hatcher (Anna Granville), Il me prend le
bras vs. il prend mon bras, 156-164

Levy (Raphael), Les Dérivés francais du
type aedificare, 324-341

Malkiel (Yakov), Three Spanish-Portu-
guese Etymologies, 307-323

Spitzer (Leo), L’Etymologie d’un‘cri de
Paris,’ 244-250

Loomis, Roger S., see Wells, Henry W.

Maestro, Marcello T., Voltaire and Beccaria
as Reformers of Criminal Law (review),
171-175

Manning, Warren Francis, The Life of Saint
Dominic in Old French Verse (review),
343-345

Mann, Klaus, André Gide and the Crisis of
Modern Thought (review), 179-181

Mare au diable, la, 125-146

Moliére, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 3-18

Montaigne, Michel de, 98-115

Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, 19-27

Mossner, Ernest C., The Forgotten Hume: Le
bon David (review), 175-176

Nerval, Gérard de, 299-306

Peyre, Henri, L’ Influence des littératures an-
tiques sur la littérature francaise moderne.
Etat des travaux (review), 178-179

Poésie romantique, la, 28-42

PorTUGUESE LITERATURE

Famadas (José), The Indian in Brazilian
Literature by D. M. Driver, 88-91
Positivism, 288-298
Proust, Marcel, 52-72, 232-237

Rabinovitz, Albert L., compiler, New York
University Index to Early American Periodi-
cal Literature, 1728-1870. No. 5. French
Fiction (review), 267-269

Révolution industrielle, la, 28-42

Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin, 203-219

Sand, George, 125-146

Schrade, Leo, Beethoven in France.
Growth of an Idea (review) , 73-82

Science, la, 28-42

Shakespeare, William, 3-18

Shaw, Edward Pease, Jacques Cazotte (re-
view), 176-178

Siciliano, Italo, Le origini delle canzoni di
gesta. Teorie e discussioni (review), 165-
171

The

SpanisH LITERATURE
Corbaté (Hermenegildo), Feijéo: A Lib-
eral in Eighteenth-Century Spain, 147-
155
Steel, Eric M., Diderot’s Imagery. A Study of
a Literary Personality (review), 345-348

Thomson, James, 43-51

Verlaine, Paul, 262-263
Viardot, Pauline, 125-146
Vigny, Alfred de, 43-51
Vinet, Alexandre, 116-124

Wells, Henry W. and Roger S. Loomis,
translators and editors, Representative
Medieval and Tudor Plays (review), 254-

255
Wright, Edith Armstrong, Ystoire de la Pas-
sion: B.N. MSfr. 821 (review), 252-254

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